Missing Manang helicopter with six people aboard crashes in Nepal
Kathmandu (PTI): A private commercial helicopter with six people aboard including five Mexican nationals that went missing near the Mount Everest area in Nepal on Tuesday has crashed in a hilly terrain in the country's eastern region, officials said.
The Manang Air NA-MV chopper took off from Surke Airport in Solukhumbu district at 10:04 am for Kathmandu and suddenly lost contact at an altitude above 12,000 feet at 10:13 am, said Gyanendra Bhul, Manager at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).
The helicopter crashed in the Lamjura area of Likhupike Rural Municipality in the remote mountainous Solukhumbu district. A detailed report is yet to come as a rescue operation is underway, said a senior official at TIA.
The official said the locals have informed him that the helicopter crashed with a loud explosion and they saw fire at the crash site.
"The locals discovered the crashed helicopter at Chihandanda," rural municipality deputy chair Nwang Lhakpa was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post newspaper.
The last location of the chopper was tracked at 10:12 am in the Lamjura Pass area, said Raju Neupane, operation and safety manager of Manang Air.
Local police have been mobilised in the area. Two helicopters sent earlier to locate the crash site had to return due to bad weather, the senior airport official said, adding that the exact reason behind the crash is not known yet.
Five Mexican nationals and pilot Chet B Gurung were aboard the helicopter.
According to MyRepublica news portal citing sources, the bodies of five of the six people on board the helicopter were found at the crash site.
Earlier, TIA spokesperson Teknath Sitaula told the news website, "It has been reported that the helicopter of Manang Air is out of contact, there is no contact with the tower when it reached the Lamjura pass, it was reported that the helicopter only received a 'hello' message on Viber, the search is underway".
Founded in 1997, Manang Air is a helicopter airline based in Kathmandu. It has been operating helicopters in commercial air transportation within the Nepalese territory under the Regulation of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.
The company provides chartered services and is focused on personalised services such as adventure flights helicopter excursions or expedition work.
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Mere breakup not enough for abetment to suicide: Delhi HC
New Delhi (PTI): Merely breaking up may not amount to instigation for a case of abetment of suicide under the criminal law, the Delhi High Court has said.
Justice Manoj Jain made the observation while dealing with a bail plea by a man accused of abetting the suicide of his former partner, who hanged herself five days after his marriage to another woman.
Granting bail to the accused, the court observed that the instigation should be of such a nature that leaves the deceased with no option but to commit suicide.
It said only a trial would establish whether the deceased's "extreme step" was on account of provocation, instigation, "merely on account of her being hyper-sensitive girl" or for some other reason.
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In the present case, the court noted, there was no dying declaration, and the parties were in a relationship for around eight years, during which there was no complaint from the deceased.
The court observed there was a considerable time gap between the date when the parties stopped talking and the date of the suicide.
"Apparently, it seems to be a case of a broken relationship and quite possibly, the deceased, having come to know that the applicant has got married to someone else, has chosen to finish herself," the court said in the order passed on February 24.
"Though broken relationship and heartbreaks have become common these days, mere breaking-up of relationship may not per se constitute instigation so as to make it to be a case of abetment under Section 108 BNS (abetment of suicide)," the court order read.
According to the father of the deceased, his daughter had been trapped by the accused, who pressured her to convert to his religion for marriage, and it was under such pressure that his daughter committed suicide by hanging herself with a chunni in October 2025.
The accused was arrested in November 2025.
The court observed that, according to the woman's friends, she was upset, and they never claimed anything on conversion. The accused had stopped talking to her from February 2025 onwards, it said.
According to the order, the man was let out on bail on a personal bond and surety bond of Rs 25,000 each.
The accused submitted that the parties were in a cordial relationship for around eight years, but the woman's parents were against the relationship since they belonged to different religions.
He alleged that it was her parents who forced her to sever the relationship.
