Four UP pilgrims die as car falls into Ganga on Badrinath highway

DEHRADUN: In yet another road accident involving Char Dham pilgrims in Uttarakhand, four people, all from Uttar Pradesh, have gone missing as the car they were travelling in plunged into the Ganga near Kodiyala on the Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway on Wednesday.


State disaster response force (SDRF) spokesperson Lalita Negi said, "An SDRF team from Byasi was sent to the spot for search and rescue operation. Due to strong current in the river, an additional deep diving team from Dhalwala was also roped in. The search operation had to be halted for a few hours due to heavy showers. The men were returning from Kedarnath in the morning."

The SDRF team found an Aadhaar card, two phones, a few bags and a damaged car number plate, which helped them in identifying the victims. The missing pilgrims are Pankaj Sharma (52), Gulveer Jain (40), Nitin (25), all from Meerut's Shastri Nagar, while the fourth person, Harsh Gujjar (19), was a resident of Kajipur, also in Meerut. A family member informed SDRF officials that "Pankaj Sharma, along with three others, had left for Kedarnath shrine on July 10 and were supposed to return by Wednesday." Sub-inspector Pradeep Rawat, in-charge of Byasi police post, said the men were mainly involved in the business of arranging DJ for weddings. Their families reached Byasi in the evening and are now anxiously waiting for the news of the missing men, Rawat added. None of them could be traced till the time of filing this report.

Last month, 25 pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh were killed when the bus in which they were travelling fell into a deep gorge near Yamunotri.