Missing Arunachal Everester, aide could be in China, say families

GUWAHATI : Arunachal’s Everester Tapi Mra and his assistant Niku Dao were reported missing in mid-August after they had embarked on scaling Mount Kyarisatam, the state’s highest mountain peak located near the China border. On Sunday, the families of the climbers said they could be in China.

For two weeks, the families of the missing climbers have been staging a sit-in in Itanagar, demanding the authorities take up the matter with China. “When we met Chief Minister Pema Khandu on September 23, we told him that the two could be in China. We wanted the state government to talk to the Centre. We haven’t got any response,” Mra’s sister Yatok Mra Nalo told this newspaper.

Earlier, their families and the Army had carried out separate search operations but got no trace of them. “We had gone up to Camp 3. Satellite imagery shows the area as the Line of Actual Control,” Mra’s sister said. She said the two families would be forced to launch an indefinite hunger strike if the state government fails to respond. 

“We don’t know if they are alive. We want the government to find out what exactly happened to them,” Nalo said. She and her mother were hospitalized on Saturday night. She returned to the site of protest on Sunday morning and was on drip. It was Mra’s fourth  attempt to scale the Mount Kyarisatam, perched at an altitude of 6,890 metres. 

4th attempt at Mount Kyarisatam 
Tapi Mra went missing while attempting to scale the Mount Kyarisatam, perched at an altitude of 6,890 metres. He is the first mountaineer from Arunachal to conquer the Everest in 2009