The return of an “abducted” teenager from China on January 27 has rekindled the hope of another Arunachal Pradesh family whose bread earner went missing from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in August 2015.
The members of Tapor Pullom’s family have renewed their plea to the Centre and the Indian Army after 19-year-old Miram Taron, who went missing on a hunting trip close to the India-China border on January 18, was handed over by the People’s Liberation Army of China nine days later.
Taron is from a border village in the Upper Siang district, while Pullom is from the Monigong area in the Shi-Yomi district.
Pullom, too, had gone hunting with his friend Taka Yorchi near the LAC. They were to return home within 30 days of setting out in the third week of August in 2015.
Hunting for meat and saleable animal body parts and foraging for the prized, high-altitude caterpillar fungus is a way of life along the LAC.
Yorchi had returned home midway as he developed some illness. He told Pullom’s family that his friend would carry on alone and return as planned.
Plea to Kiren Rijiju
The members of Pullom’s family said they had been seeking the government’s help. Recently, they appealed to Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju for New Delhi to take up his case with Beijing.
“It has been seven years but we still hope that he will return,” his daughter-in-law told The Arunachal Times.
Pullom was expected to return on September 15, 2015. Worried about his safety, the family had engaged a search party two days later to locate him. The search team found the camp he was operating from, his 12-bore gun and all other items intact. It did not find any sign of accident or human death at the campsite and nearby areas.
“He was probably caught by the Chinese soldiers as the jungle was very near to the border,” a member of Pullom’s family said.