6 SANGRUR STUDENTS RESCUED, 2 STRANDED
KULLU: After a two-day search, rescuers airlifted six of the eight trekkers who had gone missing in Chanderkhani pass in Kullu’s Parvati valley. District administration officials said two others in the group were trapped in a cave in the area.
KULLU: Six of the eight trekkers who had gone missing four days ago amid bad weather in the snow- clad mountains of Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district were rescued on Sunday, while the other two are reported to be safe inside a cave.
An aerial reconnaissance by the local administration near the Chanderkhani pass located the seven engineering students and their instructor, following which six of them were airlifted. The students are from the finalyear batch of the Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology (SLIET) in Punjab’s Sangrur district, while the instructor is from Kullu and a former student of the institute.
Kullu deputy commissioner Hans Raj Chauhan said the other two trekkers would also be pulled out once the sky cleared. Rescuers dropped packets of food and medicines for them. The group lost contact with police on Friday afternoon, after which relatives of one of the missing men sought help from the district administration.
“Hitendra spoke to me on March 7 and told me about some trekking plan with his friends,” said Nandlal Verma, father of one of the students. “All we could do was pray to God about their safety.” Authorities deployed three teams of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) after members of a local mountaineering institute and police failed to rescue the trekkers amid inclement weather. “I will ask the government to regulate trekking activities in the area, as every year several trekkers lose their life,” said area MLA Maheshwar Singh.
The trekkers are Hitendra Sharma from Theog in Himachal Pradesh, Chetan Chori and Saurav Sharma from Ambala district in Haryana, Ankush Kumar from Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, Rohit Kumar from Bagpat district in Uttar Pradesh, Anil Kumar from UP’s Hamirpur district, Akshay Kumar Bura from Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh, and instructor Bharat Prakash Kaistha from Kullu.
‘HELICOPTER SOUND REVIVED OUR HOPES’
The trekkers had run out of food on Friday and lost their shoes in deep snow on the pass. “We lost took shelter in cave to save our lives,” said Chetan Chori of Ambala, adding: “Yesterday (on Saturday), we heard the sound of a helicopter and it revived our hopes of rescue.”
The Kullu DC reported all rescued trekkers to be out of danger. “On Monday, the operation to airlift the remaining two trekkers will start early morning,” he said.
District health officer Susheel Chand said five of the six rescued trekkers were in good health, while one, Saurav Sharma, had some difficulty in breathing because of high altitude and cold. Chand, who was also on the rescue team, had treated all rescued trekkers for similar sickness on the spot. “Snow- walking without shoes has given them frostbite injures in the legs,” he said. The trekkers had arrived here on March 8.