The Indian Army has paid tributes to Lance Naik Chandrashekhar Singh whose skeletal remains were found in Siachen on Saturday 38 years after he went missing during Operation Meghdoot in 1984.
His mortal remains were handed over to his family at Haldwani in Uttarakhand on Monday.
Lance Naik Singh, who was part of a 20-member army patrol team, went missing after the team was hit by an avalanche on May 29, 1984. He was part of Operation Meghdoot launched by the Indian armed forces to take control of Siachen glacier on the morning of April 13, 1984, pre-empting Pakistan’s design to capture it.
Sources in the army said the soldier’s skeletal remains were found inside an old bunker at more than 16,000 feet. A patrol party of Rajasthan Rifles came across a shelter that had been partially destroyed by an avalanche. During the search operation, they stumbled upon the remains, torn clothes and an army disc.
“Every year during summer when snow melts, patrol teams are asked to locate missing soldiers. The skeletal remains of Lance Naik Chandrashekhar Singh were found inside the old shelter at Siachen glacier. A disc with the army number was found that helped us identify the soldier. The details about the soldier were retrieved from the army records,” said an army official.
The glacier is a slush of mud and snow between mountains of rock and ice where weather-related casualties have been reported often both on the Indian and Pakistan sides.
In April 1984, Indian troops occupied the Saltoro range flanking the glacier.
In the 22 years of Operation Meghdoot, the Pakistanis haven’t been able to go up, the Indians haven’t been able to come down.
Lance Naik Singh was part of the patrol team from the 19 Kumaon regiment. “The team was caught in an avalanche in which 20 Indian soldiers, including an officer were killed,” said a defence ministry official. The mortal remains of 14 were found during a search operation. The remains of the rest, including Lance Naik Singh, were not found.
According to official records, Lance Naik Singh, a resident of Dwarahat in Uttarakhand’s Almora, had enlisted in the army in 1975.
His wife Shanti Devi, 65, told reporters that she was proud of her husband for sacrificing his life for the country. She said they were married for nine years and she was 28 when the tragedy struck. Their elder daughter was four and the younger one was one-and-a-half years old.
“For 8-10 years after he went missing, we kept hoping for his return. We are proud that he sacrificed his life for the country,” she said.
Sources in the army said the family bade him a braveheart’s farewell and his last rites were performed with full military honours.
ITBP jawans killed in accident
Bus skidded off a road and fell into the Lidder stream near Chandanwari in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday. PTI picture
Rescue work under way after a bus carrying 39 security personnel — 37 from the the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and 2 from J&K police — skidded off a road and fell into the Lidder stream near Chandanwari in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday.
Seven ITBP jawans were killed in the accident caused by a suspected failure of brakes.
ITBP deputy inspector-general Ranveer Singh said eight critically injured jawans were airlifted to the army’s 92 base hospital in Srinagar. The other jawans are stable, he said.
