ITBP troops walk 25 kms in 8 hours to carry home body of pony operator in U'khand

The trek was undertaken on August 30 after the 14th battalion of the border guarding force was informed that a body was lying in Syuni village near Bugdayar of Pithoragarh district. The pony operator, Bhupendra Singh Rana, used to carry ration and other essentials to the high-altitude camps of the ITBP.

A team of Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel retrieved and carried the body of a pony operator for eight hours, walking a distance of 25 kms in the mountainous stretches of Uttarakhand before handing it over to his family, officials said on Wednesday. The trek was undertaken on August 30 after the 14th battalion of the border guarding force was informed that a body was lying in Syuni village near Bugdayar of Pithoragarh district.

The pony operator, Bhupendra Singh Rana, used to carry ration and other essentials to the high-altitude camps of the ITBP. It was during one such trek on August 28 that he was killed after being hit by shooting stones from a hill slope, the officials said. "The jawans carried the body of the 30-year-old man for a distance of 25 kms for about eight hours and handed over the mortal remains to the family members of the deceased," an ITBP spokesperson said.

"A team of eight personnel started the trek at 11:30 AM and reached Munsyari village at 7:30 PM on the same day," he said. The personnel carried the body on a stretcher and negotiated narrow mountain bends that are witnessing heavy rains and landslides, he said.

According to local residents, this is not the first time that the ITBP has come to their rescue. Last week, an ITBP team had carried an injured woman for 15 hours after rescuing her from a mountainous and remote border location in Pithoragarh.

Residents of Vyas Valley said the ITBP not only provides emergency ration to locals in case the supply gets disrupted but also provides food and shelter to travellers. "It would have been tough to live in high-altitude villages had there not been ITBP camps," said Shalu Datal, a resident of Santi village in Darma Valley.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)