4 West Bengal mountaineers who went missing on way to Mt Ali Ratni Tibba traced after 5 days; to be evacuated soon

Abhinav Vashisht

Kullu, September 11

All four trekkers from West Bengal who went missing since September 7 while scaling Mt Ali Ratni Tibba in Malana area of Kullu district have been traced by the rescue teams, Kullu SDM Vikas Shukla said.

The four trekkers include Abhijit Bani, 43, Chinmoy Mondal, 43, Dibash Das, 37, and Binoy Das, 31.

The SDM said the trekkers were safe and were traced at camp 1. They will descend to the base camp by 4 pm on Sunday evening along with the rescue team.

They will descend to the road head at Malana on Monday.

The heli team has departed from the base camp for Bhuntar, the SDM said.

ABVIMAS director Avinash Negi helmed the rescue operation.

According to sources, they were professional mountaineers and had reportedly not taken permission or informed the administration or police before venturing on the expedition.

Kullu Divisional Forest Officer Angel Chauhan said permission from the forest department is necessary to use and pitch tents in the forest area. 

Since there were no specific guidelines for various activities under Miscellaneous Adventure Activities Rules 2017, a few adventure activities like trekking, rock climbing, zorbing balls, rolling balls, bungee jumping, ATVs, mountain biking and skiing are allowed during the rainy season as well, while most of the activities related to river and air-borne adventure sports are banned from July 15 to September 15 every year.