Lost 38 Years, Indian Soldier's Body Found In World's Tallest Battlefield

Illustration of the Siachen Glacier area. (Wikimedia Commons/S8isfi)

JAKARTA - The body of an Indian soldier was found more than 38 years after he went missing, on the highest point glacier along the contested border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, officials said.

The soldier and 17 comrades were occupying a ridge on the Siachen Glacier, the highest in the Karakoram range in Kashmir's disputed Ladakh region, in May 1984, when an avalanche struck.

The bodies of 13 soldiers were found, but four others were missing. An army team on Monday found human remains on the glacier, with identity discs saying it belonged to Chandra Shekhar, one of the missing, the Indian army said.

Shekhar was part of the first Indian army unit to occupy the 76-kilometre (47-mile) glacier in 1984, amid heavy fighting with troops from Pakistan, which also controls parts of divided Kashmir.

Shekhar's body was flown on Wednesday to his home village in northern Uttarakhand state, after a funeral with full military honors, the army said, quoted by The National News Aug. 18.

The glacier, considered the highest battlefield in the world, was uninhabited before Indian troops moved there. Since then, both countries have deployed troops at altitudes of up to 6,700 meters (21,982 ft). They are involved in 'tension' on the glacier.

Instead of enemy fire, the majority of Indian and Pakistani soldiers who died in the region were more due to exhausting conditions or nature.

In 2017, at least 20 Indian soldiers died in three avalanches. In 2012, an avalanche in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir killed 140 people, including 129 Pakistani soldiers.