Since trekkers reported sighting human skeletal remains along the Triyuginarayan-Kedarnath path some days ago, efforts to recover the remains, which could also likely be those of June 2013 disaster victims, have been set in motion with Chief Minister Harish Rawat deputing the Inspector-General of Police, Sanjay Kumar Gunjyal, to lead teams to recover them.
The reported finding of skeletal remains is being presented as a sensational discovery by some even though observers point out that the Government and independent experts had in the aftermath of the devastation acknowledged that there was little likelihood of recovering bodies of all victims in the immediate period following the 2013 disaster.
It had been stated at the time that with even the exact number of victims not being ascertained, the bodies believed to have been buried under tonnes of debris or in inaccessible locations were expected to emerge subsequently with the rains, natural erosion and other factors removing debris covering the human remains.
Following the recent report, the Chief Minister held a special meeting on Thursday morning, directing team members including personnel of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to conduct a search operation to find any skeletal remains in the area, collect DNA samples and then conduct the proper cremation rites of the remains.
Though both the mobile phone number and landline phone number of the Rudraprayag district control room were found to be inaccessible when dialed by this correspondent, other official sources on condition of anonymity said that precise details regarding the reported skeletal remains had yet to be established apart from which the authorities had yet to reach a conclusion as to whether the reported remains were of those who died in the 2013 disaster.
Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ajendra Ajay has alleged that trekkers who had sighted the purported skeletal remains had reached Kedarnath on October 8 and the Chief Minister was also in Kedarnath on October 9, but the news about the latest skeletal findings was kept under the wraps till October 13. Ajay said, "The four-member trekkers' team which had left Triyuginarayan for Kedarnath on October 8 had reached Kedarnath in the evening of the same day.
This group had reported sighting of the human skeletons along the route they had taken. Rawat was also in Kedarnath on October 9 to felicitate groups of trekkers under the Hito Kedar programme. However, the State Government intentionally attempted to suppress the spread of this news. It was after the talk of skeletal remains sighted by the trekking group reached the local community that the authorities sprang into action.
"Another aspect to be considered is that the Triyuginarayan-Kedarnath trekking route had been repaired in the recent past by the Kedarnath wildlife division staff at a cost of about Rs 1.4 cr. The skeletons reported recently have been from area around this very route which makes one question as to how come these skeletal remains were not sighted by the forest department staff. The State Government can spend crores of rupees on song-dance performance by Kailash Kher but is unable to enable to ensure timely launch of search campaign," he added.