Nagpur, October 30, 2026: The Maharashtra government has sanctioned and handed over Rs 1 crore as ex-gratia assistance to the parents of Flight Lieutenant Purvesh Duragkar, an Indian Air Force pilot who was killed along with Squadron Leader Anuj Vashishth in the crash of a Su-30MKI fighter aircraft in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district on March 5, 2026.
District Sainik Welfare Officer Major Anand Patharkar (Retd) handed over the assistance to Ravindra Duragkar and Sandhya Duragkar in Nagpur on Thursday. Each parent received Rs 50 lakh. Major Patharkar stated that the Maharashtra government had sanctioned Rs 1 crore as ex-gratia for the parents, and the cheque was handed over once approval was received.
Flight Lieutenant Duragkar, who hailed from Nagpur, was serving as a navigator on a Su-30MKI with a frontline fighter squadron under Eastern Air Command. The aircraft took off from Air Force Station Jorhat on a training sortie and lost radar contact at approximately 7:42 pm. It crashed in a remote, hilly and forested area near Inglong Ekopi / Rongkhelan in Karbi Anglong district, roughly 60 km from the airbase. The wreckage was located the following day, and the Indian Air Force confirmed the deaths of both pilots. Neither pilot was able to eject.
Duragkar, born in 1998, was approximately 28 years old at the time of his death. He completed Class X at South Public School, Nagpur, in 2015 and later earned a BSc in Computer Science from Dr Ambedkar College. He trained at the Defence Services Academy in Bhandara while preparing for defence examinations, participated actively in the National Cadet Corps (representing Maharashtra in six national camps) and aero-modelling competitions, and joined the Indian Air Force through the AFCAT route. He was commissioned as a Flying Officer on December 7, 2022, and was later promoted to Flight Lieutenant. He was originally posted at Tezpur but was operating from Jorhat due to runway work at Tezpur.
He had participated in Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the military operation launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. He is survived by his parents and his sister Sayali, who is settled in the United States. He had visited his family in Nagpur about 10 days before the crash.
Maharashtra’s policy provides an ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the next of kin of defence personnel from the state who are killed in action or operations (effective from 2019, following progressive increases from earlier lower amounts). The assistance in this case was processed and disbursed approximately eight months after the incident.
The Indian Air Force had earlier expressed condolences, stating that all personnel stand firmly with the bereaved families. The crash was the latest involving a Su-30MKI in the Northeast in recent years.
