The mortal remains of Sepoy Malkhan Singh, who went missing in a 1968 aircraft crash at the snow-clad mountains of Himachal Pradesh's Rohtang, will reach his hometown in Saharanpur of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, after a long wait of 56 years.
The mortal remains of Sepoy Singh were found by a joint team comprising personnel from the Dogra Scouts of the Indian Army and Tiranga Mountain Rescue, putting an end to one of India's longest-running search operations.
The twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft, carrying 102 people, had gone missing on February 7, 1968 while flying from Chandigarh to Leh. The ill-fated AN-12 aircraft crashed over the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh.
"In an extraordinary development, the ongoing search and rescue mission to recover the remains of personnel from the AN-12 aircraft, which crashed on Rohtang Pass in 1968, has achieved significant breakthroughs," an official said.
Additional SP Sagar Jain said the body is expected to reach Saharanpur from Ladakh by Thursday. Singh's last rites will be performed by the family after the body reaches his native Fatehpur village in Nanauta area.
ALSO READ: Russian fighter jet Su-35 had an 'unsafe, unprofessional' headbutting with US F-16: US Army
Singh's family members were informed about the recovery of the body by the Army recently and they are engaged in preparing for the last rites, the officer said.
For decades, the wreckage and remains of the victims remained lost in the icy terrain as the treacherous conditions and unforgiving terrain of the crash site made it nearly impossible to conduct search operations.
In 2003 when mountaineers from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering discovered the wreckage, leading to multiple expeditions over the years by the Indian Army, especially the Dogra Scouts.
Only five bodies of the victims were recovered by 2019.
The three out of four mortal remains found are of Malkhan Singh, Sepoy Narayan Singh and Craftsman Thomas Charan, the officials said.
The documents recovered from the remaining body have not conclusively identified the individual. However, the details of the next of kin were found, the officials said.