Rafale: Break in attempt in Paris

Months before India is to receive its first Rafale fighter aircraft, a theft was attempted in the Indian project management team's office located at a Paris suburb.

On Sunday night, unidentified miscreants tried to break into the Indian project management team's office that is co-located in a premise of the Dassault Aviation – the manufacturer of the Rafale jets. The French firm has reported the matter to the local police, which is investigating the case.

When asked a Defence Ministry spokesperson refused to make any comment on the episode. The Ministry of External Affairs and IAF too refused to respond to queries.

Sources, however, told DH that a preliminary scrutiny by the Indian side seemed to have indicated that no hard disk or documents were stolen. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was briefed about the break-in attempt.

The Rafale project management team is headed by a Group Captain rank officer, who coordinates with the French side to ensure the aircraft are delivered on time and the training schedule of Indian pilots and technicians are followed in time.

The first Rafale aircraft is to be handed over to India by September 2019 at a function in Paris. However, it may take few more months for the aircraft's arrival in India as a bunch of 4-5 aircraft are to be shipped to India together.

Once inducted Rafale would be the most modern aircraft in the IAF inventory and stationed at Ambala on the western front and Hashimara on the east.

In 2016, India signed a Rs 59,000 crore deal to buy 36 Rafale aircraft from France in a government-to-government deal. Dassault Aviation is to deliver all the 36 aircraft by 2022.

The mega defence deal hogged the limelight in the last few months because of a bitter duel between the ruling BJP-led alliance and opposition parties led by Congress in the run up to the Parliamentary elections with the Congress accusing BJP of committing a scam in the deal.

However, the Supreme Court and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India could not find anything wrong with the deal.

Weeks after the February 27 dog-fight between the IAF and Pakistan Air Force, Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa had stated that the PAF wouldn't even dare to come anywhere near the Line of Control had India had Rafale in its inventory.