NEW DELHI/AGRA: The forbidding ice deserts of the Siachen glacier- considered, the coldest, highest and most expensive battlefields in the world, have been hiding one of Indias fallen soldiers for 18 long years in its vast blinding white expanses- that has served as an efficient coffin, preserving Havildar Gaya Prasad’s body all these years.
Reported missing in Dec 1996, Gaya Prasad is one of many soldiers both India and Pakistan lose to the constant exchange of fire across the Actual Ground Position Line, and the impossible weather conditions. Declared a ‘battle casualty’ at the time, after the Indian Army failed to trace his mortal remains, his family was granted full pension benefits.
About a week ago, a routine patrol of Indian soldiers spotted a hand sticking out of the snow in the glacier. On digging, they discovered the body. The dog-tag and service card identified him as Gaya Prasad of 15 Rajput battalion. Although his mother passed away without getting to see her sons body, the rest of his family in Uttar Pradesh, can at long last perform his last rites so many years later.
TOI reports that there will finally be some closure for Havildar Gaya Prasad’s distraught family now. Eighteen years after he went missing in the Siachen-Saltoro Ridge region, the fallen soldier’s “relatively well-preserved” body has been found in the glacial heights.
Gaya Prasad’s mortal remains will now head home, located in the distant Kuraria village of Mainpuri district in Uttar Pradesh, to find his final resting place with full military honours in front of his octogenarian father Gajadhar Singh, wife Rama Devi, son Satish, daughters Meena and Manju, amid others.
“Gaya lived in my hopes… in my heart,” said Gajadhar Singh, choking with emotion. After a pause to catch his breath, he added, “We were told Gaya died on duty but the fact that we could never get hold of his body for the final rites was the most painful for us. His mother died with the wish to see him once. Now, at least at this age, I will be able to see my son’s body.”
Army officers on Tuesday, 19 August, said the body was now at the Leh military hospital after being brought down from the Northern Glacier, where temperatures can dip to minus 50-60 degree Celsius, in a Cheetah helicopter.
The soldiers son- Satish, who was barely 12 when his father went missing, reached Chandigarh with the help of the Army to receive the body. He said his family had never given up hope. “It was also a burden for me that as a son, I could not cremate my father,” Satish said.
Back in December 1996, when India and Pakistan were still exchanging heavy fire in the icy desert ranges, Gaya Prasad was reported missing. “He apparently fell into a deep crevice near the Khanda Drop Zone. A search operation was mounted but he could never be traced. As per rules, Gaya Prasad was declared a ‘battle casualty’ with full pension benefits to his family,” said an officer.
Then, around a week ago, a routine patrol of Indian soldiers spotted his hand sticking out of the snow in the glacier, and discovered that the body actually belonged to Gaya Prasad of 15 Rajput battalion.
Although the Army manages to retrieve the bodies of most of its fallen soldiers in Siachen, no trace is ever found of some. Since 1984, when Indian troops beat Pakistani soldiers by a whisker to occupy most of the dominating heights on Saltoro Ridge, India has lost around 900 soldiers in the region. Pakistan has lost many more. All new soldiers inducted into the icy heights are taught to “survive first and then fight”, battling high-altitude pulmonary odema, cerebral odema, hypothermia, hypoxia and frostbite in the extremely tough terrain of Siachen at heights ranging from 16,000 to 22,000 feet.
Despite frequent ceasefire violations of 778-km Line of Control and the 198-km International Border in J&K, it has largely held in the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen.
“With better infrastructure and equipment in place now, our casualties have drastically reduced. Compared to the heavy toll in earlier years since 1984, when some soldiers even lived in ice caves, we lost 24 soldiers in 2011, 12 in 2012 and 10 in 2013, all due to the harsh climatic conditions and terrain,” said an officer.
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