Kinnaur (Himachal Pradesh): Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) retrieved a body of a missing trekker near Lamkhaga Pass in Himachal Pradesh. The body was found during ITBP Patrol on June 17, 2022. The body was carried for 10 Kilometres in inhospitable terrains by the Second Battalion ITBP to hand it over to Himachal Pradesh Police on late Saturday evening.
According to ITBP, a trekker group from West Bengal was trapped in sudden snowfall when they were crossing Lamkhaga Pass on their Harsil-Chitkul trek in October 2021. ITBP had carried out search and rescue operations and had retrieved 2 dead bodies from the Himachal side of Lamkhaga Pass. One trekker was not found due to heavy snow accumulation.
"It is probably the same missing trekker. Cameras and personal belongings were found in the bag of the deceased," said ITBP. Earlier, 12 bodies of trekkers from two trekking groups who had gone missing in two separate places near the Lamkhaga Pass were recovered in October last. Six of the missing trekkers were rescued while four continued to be missing, officials had said.
The climbers were reported missing on the trekking route near the Lamkhaga Pass that connects Chitkul in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district with Harshil in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district. Uttarakhand and parts of Himachal Pradesh had been hit by heavy rainfall in October last year.