Soldier cremated in Uttarakhand village 56 years after death in plane crash

    Gopeshwar, Oct 3 (PTI) The body of jawan Narayan Singh Bisht was cremated with full military honours in his village in Chamoli district on Thursday, days after a search and rescue team found him buried in snow while looking for the remains of personnel missing since a 1968 IAF plane crash near the Rohtang Pass.
    Singh was a jawan in the Army's Medical Corps. He was on board an Indian Air Force AN-12 aircraft which crashed near Rohtang on February 7, 1968, while flying from Chandigarh to Leh. For decades, the wreckage and remains of the victims remained lost in the icy terrain.
    But a search and rescue team scouring the snow-clad mountains of Himachal Pradesh's Rohtang recently recovered the mortal remains of four victims of the ill-fated aircraft, marking a significant success in one of India's longest-running search operations.
    The last rites of the soldier were performed in Kolpuri village in the Tharali area by his nephews Surendra Singh and Jai Veer Singh in the presence of a large number of relatives, locals and Army officials.
    Wrapped in a tricolour, Narayan Singh's body was brought to the village and kept at his residence for an hour before cremation for people to pay their last respects.
    MLA Bhupal Ram Tamta and Tharali Sub-Divisional Magistrate Abrar Ahmad were also present.
    Narayan Singh Bisht's wife Basanti Devi died in 2011.
    Jai Veer Singh said he found it difficult to believe when the news of the body being found came as the family had lost all hope.
    "I could not believe my ears when I received the information. We were happy and sad at the same time. We felt happy that he could finally be cremated with respect, but the news also revived the pain of his loss," he added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)