HYDERABAD, June 29, 2013: At least 100 pilgrims hailing from Hyderabad were rescued by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) from the remote areas of Uttarakhand on Thursday night. State government officials said the pilgrims were found stranded in groups in Gauchar, Harsil, near Guptkasi and Rishikesh. "The rescued pilgrims will be brought to Hyderabad in a special flight," said N V Ramana Reddy, special secretary, protocol, one of the officers overseeing the rescue and relief operations in Dehradun.


Gauchar is a hill town located on the banks of river Alakananda in Karnaprayag tehsil in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand while Harsil is a village located on the banks of Bhagirathi River on the way to Gangotri. All the pilgrims had been stranded for the last 10 days and managed to survive with scarce food and water for a few days and went hungry and thirsty for the last four days, the official said. 

Almost all the pilgrims were weak and lodged at resting houses in Dehradun and provided with medical treatment. A special aircraft arranged by the state government was to leave Dehradun around 11 pm on Friday but because of bad weather, the flight was put off to Saturday morning. With this, all the pilgrims stranded in the Uttarakasi area have been rescued while there are still 1,500 pilgrims from all over the country including from the state still to be evacuated from the relief camps in Badrinath. 

As of Friday, 115 pilgrims from the state were still missing or not accounted for. With the rescue of the 100 pilgrims from Hyderabad, the number of missing persons from the state capital has come down to 38 while 35 is the number of missing persons hailing from Ranga Reddy district. The number of missing persons from other districts are Krishna (14), Visakhapatnam (7), Chittoor (5), Guntur and Kadapa (4 each), Anantapur and West Godavari (3 each) and Nizamabad (2). 

Source: The Times of India, DT. June 29, 2013.