A police team deployed for cremation of bodies in Kedarnath found a purse containing list of 22 mobile phone numbers from the debris. From these numbers, police got in touch with one of the family members of the deceased from Haryana, said IG Ram Singh Meena on Wednesday.
Meena said that when the police officer phoned one of the mobile phone numbers, he got in touch with Gurgaon resident Pradeep Sharma. According to Sharma, his parents Ram Kishan Sharma and Chandrakala Sharma along with 13 others had gone to Kedarnath and last time he had last contacted them on June 16. Sharma had registered an FIR about his missing parents and 13 others in Rishikesh Police Station. Another police officer said that 22 mobile phone numbers found in Chandrakala’s purse were her relatives’ mobile numbers.
Police Head Quarter disaster relief control room in-charge and Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Pradeep Rai said that police had recovered as many as 304 bodies so far out of which 65 were identified. A total of 205 bodies were recovered in Rudraprayag district out of which 119 were from Kedarnath.Rai further said that a joint team of Uttarakhand police headed by DIG GS Martolia and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) performed cremation of 21 bodies with full honours in Kedarnath on August 7. The team has performed cremation of 140 bodies with full honours in Kedarnath so far.
For their identification of the bodies, police had collected DNA samples and photographed the bodies apart from which jewellery found on bodies is also being kept for identification. The inclement weather in Kedarnath is creating difficulties for police team in extracting the bodies from debris.The police team is camping in Kedarnath and the work of extracting the bodies from debris will continue on Thursday. It may be mentioned here that around 6,300 persons have been reported missing in recent disaster of Uttarakhand.