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A body trapped in ice for 36 years melts a waiting family in Jammu: The Indian Express
Naiwala Camp, Jammu, Aug 06: Thirty-five years ago, a 20-year-old woman in Palanwala, began waiting for her husband who had gone to work. He did not come back and she was told that her husband, a sepoy in the Army, had gone missing during a flight from Chandigarh to Leh.
Naiwala Camp, Jammu, Aug 06: Thirty-five years ago, a 20-year-old woman in Palanwala, began waiting for her husband who had gone to work. He did not come back and she was told that her husband, a sepoy in the Army, had gone missing during a flight from Chandigarh to Leh.
Now 55, Giano Devi is still awaiting official word about her husband.
This week a group of trekkers at Dhakka in Himachal Pradesh found a body frozen in the glacier. The documents in his pocket showed he was Beli Ram, a sepoy of the Pioneer Company — Giano Devi’s husband who did not come back after that flight in 1968.
Giano Devi never went back to her parents. She stayed with her in-laws, waiting for her husband to return. She kept writing letters to the officials of the Pioneer Company asking about her husband’s whereabouts. ‘‘Officials told us not to write so frequently and that they would contact us as and when they came to know about him,’’ she says. The correspondence stopped.
Satu Ram, a childhood friend who too had joined the same company along with Beli Ram in 1963, recalls that he was transferred from Nagaland to Leh in 1967. He says the plane which his friend boarded from Chandigarh in January 1968 had reached Leh, but returned as it could not land there due to bad weather. It is believed to have crashed above the Dhakka glacier.
The Army, when it could not find either the passengers or the wreckage of the plane, declared everybody missing. Giano Devi did not become a widow and began her wait. She been getting pension from the Army — Rs 47.50 in 1968, around Rs 2,000 now.
The Army has not yet told her officially that her husband’s body has been found. ‘‘No one from the Army or the government has informed us that the body has been found in Lahul Sapiti. We came to know about it from the newspapers,’’ says Giano Devi. Her mother-in-law, Dhanno Devi, 80, sits by her side in their tent at the Naiwala migrant camp. The camp has been home ever since they migrated from Palanwala along with other family members in the wake of Pakistani shelling four years ago.
Satu Ram, the childhood friend, says he visited the Army unit at Akhnoor to find out about the report of the body in the glacier. ‘‘The officials there told me that they will inform the family as soon as they get information,’’ he says. When contacted, an Army spokesman told The Indian Express that they cannot say anything officially unless they get confirmation that the body found by trekkers at Dhakka glacier was that of Beli Ram. ‘‘The station headquarters at Jammu has been informed and they are finding out the details,’’ he added.
But in the camp in Naiwala, mourning has begun. Giano Devi and her mother-in-law stare at Beli Ram’s photograph and sob.
‘‘Let us have his body so that we can see his face for the last time and do his last rites,’’ says Dhanno Devi. ‘‘Even though we were told that he went missing, we always thought he might have strayed into China and that he may have been alive there,’’ she adds. Bureau Report
This week a group of trekkers at Dhakka in Himachal Pradesh found a body frozen in the glacier. The documents in his pocket showed he was Beli Ram, a sepoy of the Pioneer Company — Giano Devi’s husband who did not come back after that flight in 1968.
Giano Devi never went back to her parents. She stayed with her in-laws, waiting for her husband to return. She kept writing letters to the officials of the Pioneer Company asking about her husband’s whereabouts. ‘‘Officials told us not to write so frequently and that they would contact us as and when they came to know about him,’’ she says. The correspondence stopped.
Satu Ram, a childhood friend who too had joined the same company along with Beli Ram in 1963, recalls that he was transferred from Nagaland to Leh in 1967. He says the plane which his friend boarded from Chandigarh in January 1968 had reached Leh, but returned as it could not land there due to bad weather. It is believed to have crashed above the Dhakka glacier.
The Army, when it could not find either the passengers or the wreckage of the plane, declared everybody missing. Giano Devi did not become a widow and began her wait. She been getting pension from the Army — Rs 47.50 in 1968, around Rs 2,000 now.
The Army has not yet told her officially that her husband’s body has been found. ‘‘No one from the Army or the government has informed us that the body has been found in Lahul Sapiti. We came to know about it from the newspapers,’’ says Giano Devi. Her mother-in-law, Dhanno Devi, 80, sits by her side in their tent at the Naiwala migrant camp. The camp has been home ever since they migrated from Palanwala along with other family members in the wake of Pakistani shelling four years ago.
Satu Ram, the childhood friend, says he visited the Army unit at Akhnoor to find out about the report of the body in the glacier. ‘‘The officials there told me that they will inform the family as soon as they get information,’’ he says. When contacted, an Army spokesman told The Indian Express that they cannot say anything officially unless they get confirmation that the body found by trekkers at Dhakka glacier was that of Beli Ram. ‘‘The station headquarters at Jammu has been informed and they are finding out the details,’’ he added.
But in the camp in Naiwala, mourning has begun. Giano Devi and her mother-in-law stare at Beli Ram’s photograph and sob.
‘‘Let us have his body so that we can see his face for the last time and do his last rites,’’ says Dhanno Devi. ‘‘Even though we were told that he went missing, we always thought he might have strayed into China and that he may have been alive there,’’ she adds. Bureau Report