MH 17: More evidence to indicate conspiracy against Putin? 17 flights took the same path that day

New Delhi, July 19: The Malaysian Transport Minister's statement today on the

tragedy raised many eyebrows. Condemning the entire issue and declaring that he would be flying to Kiev with a team to investigate the tragedy along with his Ukrainian counterparts and book the culprits, Minister Liow Tiong La said something that struck attentive minds immediately. He said that it is unknown why the commercial airline was shot down, especially when the

path was adopted by more than 17 flights that very day.

Then why this flight? Does the fact strengthen the theory that it was the victim of mistaken identity and that the BUK missile was meant for Vladimir Putin's plane? The similarity in the structure and the make of both the planes may have confused the culprits. In fact, Virgin Atlantic flight VS301 from Delhi to London was just 140 miles away at that point, Singapore Airlines plane flew through that very same area just two minutes before the MH17 attack, 6 Heathrow-bound flights were among 55 planes were over Donetsk on that same day.

Interestingly, the CAA had warned pilots against certain areas, but the rest were declared normal. Not that, the Ukrainian area where the incident happened reported of such incidents, then why this particular plane?

Security officials get threatened by armed men, another indication?

Nevertheless, the 300 flights that were slated to take the same route were dropped and the aircraft deviated. Evidently, a map of European airspace showed flights avoiding Ukraine after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down, according to an illustrative report by MailOnline.

Meanwhile, back in Malaysia, Liow told reporters,"we will want to ensure a safe corridor to the site," Liow told reporters. We sent a team to Kyiv yesterday night. I will be leaving for Kyiv tonight to ensure we have access to the site."

Defence Minister and former Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein asserted that Malaysia was in constant touch with international authorities like Russia, Ukraine, the United States, Britain and China for help investigating the case. "We want to get to the bottom of this and the main priority was to ensure security and that any debris was not tampered with."

"We do not have a position until the facts have been verified, whether the plane was really brought down, how it was brought down, who brought it down." he further added.

About 30 officials, mostly from the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe, arrived at the crash site between the villages of Rozsypne and Hrabove, about 40 kilometres from the Russian border. They said that there were groups of armed men who threatened them for being there. One of the officials Bociurkiw said "we were greeted by physically agitated armed individuals who clearly weren't happy to see us there".

He further added, "they kept us to a very small area, they were aggressive, threatening, and we were there to really just establish the facts. For example, to see how much security there is in the perimeter of the crash site, to see how many bodies were there, to see whether the bodies had been tampered with. We were able to do very, very little of that because of the behaviour of the guards." [Read full report by CBCNEWS]