Coincidences that came in from the cold

As you read this, that trail to the wreckage, on the slopes of Point CB-13, a 20,500-foot-high peak, is getting cold. Snowfall has begun in the Dhaka glacier, search teams have called off their work. But one trail is as warm as ever.

It belongs to Milap Chand Sharma, a glaciology professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. And it begins with his memory of an accident.

As a 22-year-old MPhil student in 1985, Milap had scaled CB-13 with a team when he slipped and fell more than 100 feet. He was bleeding, the injuries were severe.

‘‘The team knew we had to reach the base camp as soon as possible. The route by which we climbed would take a long time. There was a short cut but until that day, no one had ever taken it. But this was an emergency and so I.D. Sharma (Milap’s instructor) decided to take the risk,’’ he says. The risk was worth it. For the first time, human feet descended the icy expanse of the South Dhaka glacier, least knowing they would stumble upon the missing link to Indian Air Force’s most enduring enigma.

Carrying Milap with them, they trudged past pieces of aircraft metal, clothing, baggage. But given the urgency, they picked up a letter to show for what they had, literally, stumbled upon.

This letter—with a 1968 marking—was sent to Defence headquarters where no one woke up. It seemed this slice of military history would remain frozen. Until another twist in this tale—17 years later last September.

Soumyajit Guha, a JNU student, was reported missing while on a trek around Dhaka glacier. Milap was asked by his university to help find Guha. That search took him back several times with little success.

Until last month, when Milap combined a field trip for his students with the Guha search mission. ‘‘We were to return on July 7 but I asked the students to stay on in Batal (at the foot of CB-13) while I made a round of Pin Parbati Pass where Guha had gone missing.’’

Again, the trip was futile as Milap ran into 10 feet of snow. But the two days which he added to his schedule meant Milap would bump into his old instructor I.D. Sharma—who had come with another team to climb CB-13—at Batal.

‘‘I had read a news story a couple of weeks ago about a woman who thinks her husband has been imprisoned in Pakistan since 1968. According to her, he was aboard the AN-12 (that crashed). When I learnt that ID would go towards South Dhaka Glacier, I asked him to look for evidence,’’ says Milap. Which ID did. And a week later, news trickled in that debris of an AN-12 IAF plane with 98 persons on board, which had gone missing in February 1968, has been located.

The Sunday Express spoke to Sharma. ‘‘I would have never looked had it not been for Milap’s words. I made the effort and as destiny would have it, I found Beli Ram’s body.’’ And with this began an unprecedented search for the other 97 bodies by a joint team of the IAF and the Army.

‘‘It was quite a good feeling for me,’’ says Milap.