Five days after the Pawan Hans helicopter he was travelling in went missing, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu was found dead on Wednesday at Luguthang, near border with China.
His family members reached the site of the helicopter crash and identified the chief minister’s body and those of two others on the ill-fated craft, including his security officer. However, the other two bodies found at the site were mutilated, charred beyond recognition and could not be identified. The bodies were found at a height of 4,900 metres.
On board the helicopter with Mr Khandu were Capt. J.S. Babbar, Capt. T.S. Mamik, security officer Yeshi Choddak and Yeshi Lhamu, sister of Tawang MLA Tsewang Dhondup.
The wreckage was traced at around 10 am Wednesday by a group of civilians led by a village defence party. Chief ministerial adviser Kiren Rijiju, who reached the crash site, told reporters: “Efforts are on to retrieve the five bodies (and take them) to the nearest accessible point, but this could take close to seven hours. It is an uphill climb, and the terrain where the helicopter crashed is rough and slippery.” The chief minister’s body will then be flown to Itanagar, the state capital.
As the first indications of the CM’s body being found reached New Delhi, Union home minister P. Chidambaram said the “news is grim and sad”. Speaking to reporters, he said: “From whatever I can piece together from the information given by the villagers, and assuming it to be true, I am afraid the news is grim and sad.” The home minister said some villagers reportedly reached the site where a helicopter had crashed and communicated to the control room in Itanagar that they had identified two bodies, while three were charred beyond recognition.
“These are interrupted communications by villagers who reached the site. But no official of the government, Army or police has been able to reach there,” Mr Chidambaram said on Wednesday. “It may take several hours for any of these officials to reach the spot because it is about 5 km from Kyela,” he said.
The home minister said a Cheetah helicopter which had flown over the site has been able to locate the debris of a crashed helicopter and some bodies lying there. “We are trying to land another Cheetah from Lubothang,” Mr Chidambaram said, adding that a government team was yet to reach the accident site.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Chidambaram had said the information from the search teams was “not encouraging, and not good news”. He said the search parties had “sighted three bodies” on the flight path of the Pawan Hans helicopter after it had taken off from Tawang. “This sighting has been made from a height,” he said, adding that an Army team had been dispatched on foot to the crash site. The location was at a height of 4,900 metres, and it would therefore “take some time and difficulty to reach there”, he said. “When they reach there, they will communicate to us what they have found.”
On Saturday morning, Mr Khandu left Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh on his way to Itanagar. The helicopter lost contact 20 minutes after takeoff as it approached Sela Pass, which is 13,000 feet above sea level. The area is known as a challenging one for pilots, and bad weather might have made aerial navigation more difficult.
As news of the wreckage sighting spread, a pall of gloom descended all across Arunachal. A large number of people started gathering in front of the CM’s official residence in Itanagar. His entire family, though, was in Tawang, where the CM’s last rites will be performed.
Massive ground search operations had been conducted in the past few days, with bad weather making it tough for the Air Force to operate. Experts involved in search and rescue operations also studied images from Indian Space Research Organisation satellites to trace the wreckage.