Odia jawan Saroj Kumar Das, who was among the 23 missing army personnel in the Sikkim flash floods, was found dead on Thursday.

The body of Saroj was identified by his elder brother Manoj through a video call on Thursday.

Saroj, who hails from Kendudhipa village under Kamakhyanagar police station in Dhenkanal district, joined the army in 2012. He had married only seven months back.

His elder brother Manoj said: “I received a phone call from the army with the callers telling me about the death of my younger brother. The officials showed me six bodies and one of them was of my younger brother. His face was swollen.

Manoj told reporters his younger brother talked to the family members on Tuesday night around 10pm and said they were travelling in an army van and there was heavy rain reported in the area. However, on Wednesday morning they came to know about the missing army jawans. “Though we tried to contact him, his phone remained switched off,” the elder brother said.

Due to the cloudburst over Lhonak lake around 1.30am on Wednesday, flash floods occurred in Teesta river in North Sikkim. Around 49 people including 23 army jawans went missing in the flash floods.

After Manoj confirmed the death of his younger brother, a pall of gloom descended over his native village.