GUWAHATI: The Indian Air Force (IAF) has traced the family of an air warrior who died in a plane crash in 1968 and whose body was retrieved two years ago.
Alina Bareh was busy doing her household chores on May 2 when an IAF official called her to inform that the mortal remains of her father, Warrant Officer S Bhattacharjee, had been recovered.
On May 7, a team of IAF officials visited her residence at Mission Compound of Jowai in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hills. The personnel were helped by the Khasi Ex-servicemen Community in Meghalaya capital Shillong in tracing the family.
In the winter of 1968, an AN-12 aircraft of the IAF was flying from Chandigarh to Leh with 102 personnel, including Warrant Officer S Bhattacharjee, on board. Inclement weather made the pilot to fly back. Suddenly, the aircraft went missing.
Fifty years later, in 2018, its wreckage was found at the Dhaka glacier of Himachal Pradesh at an altitude of 5,240 meters. Later, the frozen body of a crash victim was retrieved by a team of mountaineers, believed to be that of Warrant Officer Bhattacharjee.
Alina and her two brothers are the three surviving members of the eight-member family. She was all of three years when the tragedy struck.
She said her mother, the late RT Bareh, would always tell them the enemies had captured and imprisoned their father. At the time of the plane crash, he was in his forties.
Alina, now 55 and a housewife, said she was waiting for a communication from the IAF.
"On May 7, the IAF officials had visited my residence. They had come to trace the family which was their basic job. They said they would talk to their office in Delhi and get back to us. They haven’t done it so far," she told The New Indian Express on Monday.
"We haven't seen the body. So, how can we believe without seeing it? I don’t know if the body is in Delhi or in some other place. I wasn't told anything," she signed off.