M A I N   N E W S

UK rafters help retrieve Army man’s body
Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service

Kharo (Kinnaur), September 10
Four British rafters who had come on a private tour to Himachal Pradesh and were at Rampur in Shimla district helped the Army in retrieving the body of a jawan from the Sutlej that was spotted near Tanglik yesterday.

Identified as Havildar Ravi Selwan, he was among the ill-fated 34 Army personnel from the 18 Engineers Regiment who were drowned in the Sutlej when a Bailey bridge under construction collapsed on Thursday afternoon.

Jawans of the Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police launched a joint operation this morning with the assistance of Home Guards to retrieve a body that was spotted near Tanglik, 12 km from Kharo, the site of the tragic incident. However, they were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the district administration got information that a few British rafters were halting at Rampur, about 90 km from Tanglik. The district administration sought their help.

After three hours of struggle, they managed to retrieve the body. The partially-mutilated body bore multiple injury marks and was identified to be that of Ravi Selwan. No other body was spotted till the filing of this report. However, the search operation was still on.

Earlier, the General-Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Command, Lt-Gen S. Pattabhiraman, today visited the site of the incident and later held a meeting with officials of the district administration. Earlier, he also held a closed-door meeting with senior officials of the Army here, the details of which were not immediately available.

During the meeting with the officials of the district administration, he assured the civil authorities that re-construction work on the collapsed bridge would begin by next week so that road traffic from Reckong Peo to Pooh could be restored as soon as possible. He made it clear that the 18 Engineers Regiment would again be entrusted with the task of re-building the bridge.

Another Bailey bridge, 4 km upstream of Kharo, is partially damaged and work on it can only resume after the construction of this vital bridge since the construction material is to be transported through it.