Correspondent
PASIGHAT, 4 Oct: Ending three days of tireless rescue operations, the joint forces of the East Siang police, the SDRF and the NDRF on Saturday evening recovered the lifeless body of a tourist who had fallen into a deep gorge at the Pongging tourist viewpoint, located 15 km from Pasighat in East Siang district.
As per reports, Uma Shankar (22), an official of the India Post Department serving in Assam’s Dhemaji district, accidentally fell into the gorge on Thursday. He was reported missing after the accident.
Uma’s friends reported the incident at the Mebo police station in East Siang district on Thursday afternoon and sought police and SDRF help to search for Uma Shankar.
Following the report, a joint team of the SDRF and the East Siang district police, led by Mebo PS OC Akai Chama, rushed to the spot and conducted an operation to trace the missing person, but they could not find his whereabouts.
The joint team, which followed up the search operation the next day, located Shankar’s lifeless body in a deep gorge on the bank of the Yanme river. But they could not retrieve the body on the day due to manpower shortage and inclement weather.
The local administration on Saturday deployed an NRDF team to help the police and the SDRF in the operation. The joint forces finally retrieved the body from the gorge on Saturday evening.
The Mebo PS OC informed that the joint team recovered the lifeless body of Uma Shankar at around 6:30 pm. The deceased’s body is currently at the Mebo CHC for postmortem.
Late Uma Shankar was a native of Naser in Bihar’s Gaya district. He had come to Pasighat as a tourist, and was accompanied by three others on the journey.
