MEA seeks report, HP cops arrest local porter

SHIMLA: The police have arrested a person on Tuesday in connection with the case of lost American traveller Justin Alexander Shelter (35) who went missing after he left to trek 13,500-feet-high Mantalai Lake in August this year.

On Tuesday, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj assured that she will take up the matter with chief minister Virbhadra Singh. Writing on her Twitter handle, she said, “I will ask for a report from chief minister Himachal Pradesh Virbhadra Singh ji regarding Justin Alexander Shetler.”

Arrested local porter identified as Anil Kumar had accompanied Shelter and carried his luggage till Mantalai.

“We have arrested Anil Kumar, an Uttarakhand resident, who was hired by the ‘baba’ who committed suicide in police custody last week,” Padam Chand, superintendent of police, Kullu said.

Earlier, on Friday, the police had arrested Satya Narayan Rawat, who was the last person to be seen with Shelter. Rawat, however, hanged himself in the police station on Saturday without revealing anything during his interrogation.

Justin Alexander Shelter, a backpacker from America, had come to Kullu during mid-August to travel across the Valley but went missing shortly after his arrival.

Shelter in his blog on August 18 had written that he wanted to live a life of hermit in the caves and stated that he had been mediating and at the same time, feeling malnourished. HTC