After almost 10 days, the body of one of the five army jawans, missing in the avalanche in Kinnaur district, was recovered on Saturday morning by the rescue and search team.
The jawan, Rajesh Rishi (25), from Nalagarh in Solan district, was amongst the six jawans of 7 JAK Rifles who had been buried alive in an avalanche while patrolling Namgia Dogri at the Shipki La border post in Kinnaur district on February 20 in the afternoon.
Four jawans are still missing.
Kinnaur Deputy Commissioner Gopal Chand said, “The body of the army jawan was recovered today morning. His body was brought to Pooh and has been sent for postmortem.”
He said that as many as 500 persons were involved in the search operations which are still underway to recover the remaining four missing jawans.
The inclement weather, accompanied by heavy snow and glaciers, had hampered the rescue operations continuously in the last few days, he added.
On Friday, the search team had recovered a mobile and a watch which was understood to be that of one of the jawans.
Of the six jawans, Havaldar Rakesh Kumar (41) of Ghumarpur in Bilaspur district, was rescued the same day, however, he died on the way to the hospital.
According to army sources, the army has deployed around 500 people that include Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Border Road Organization besides army men, sniffer dogs and even the locals were also chipping in to help.
Chief of staff, Headquarters Western Command Lt Gen PM Bali is also said to have visited the spot on February 23 and assured all-out efforts will be made to trace the missing jawans.
As four of the jawans are still missing, the army intends to continue with the rescue operations till the last jawan is retrieved, said the sources.