DEHRADUN: In a poignant development related to the 1968 IAF plane crash in Himachal Pradesh, Army rescuers identified the remains of sepoy Narayan Singh, one of four soldiers missing since the tragedy, thanks to a small piece of paper found in his pocket. The note, which simply read “Basanti Devi,” contained his wife’s name.
Nearly six decades later, Narayan’s body has been returned to his remote village, providing much-needed closure for his family in Chamoli, Uttarakhand. Hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their final respects.
A mountaineering team from the Army’s Dogra Scouts recovered Narayan’s remains from the Dhaka glacier. “We were overwhelmed when Army officials reached out to our family with the news,” said Rajendra Singh, whose grandfather was Narayan’s cousin. He added, “We will take his body to the ancestral home for the final rites at our family ghat.”
On Wednesday, the remains arrived at Gauchar airstrip in Chamoli and are expected to reach Kolpuri in the Chamoli district by Thursday morning. Jaiveer Singh, village head of Kolpuri and son of Narayan’s wife, Basanti Devi, shared with TOI, “My mother waited for six years and then married Narayan’s cousin. I was born afterward. Since Narayan was her first husband, I will perform all the rituals as if he were my father.”
Basanti Devi passed away in 2011. She and Narayan, who married in 1962, did not have children together, but she went on to have seven children from her second marriage.
