Another youth's body retrieved from Kullu's Malana nullah

The police and rescue teams recovered the body of 21-year-old Ram Chander, who had drowned along with another youth in the Malana nullah on the night of April 30. The duo was returning from Bhuntar when they were swept away by the strong currents of the nullah after they fell into it while crossing a makeshift footbridge. To aid the rescue operations, the authorities had temporarily stopped the water flow upstream from the Malana dam.

The rescue teams had recovered the body of 19-year-old Inderjeet on Thursday. Ram Chander's body was briefly spotted before it vanished again due to the powerful flow of the nullah. Kullu SP Karthikeyan Gokulachandran said that divers and police personnel found Ram Chander's body around 1 km downstream. He added that the body had been sent for a postmortem.

The previous metal footbridge was destroyed in flash floods triggered by a cloudburst on the night of July 31, 2024, when water breached the Malana Hydroelectric Project-I dam. Villagers installed a wooden bridge within five days, enabling a passage over the nullah. However, the road connecting Jari village to the nearest motorable point in Malana that was severely damaged in flash floods was yet to be repaired. As a result, villagers have to trek around 12 km to reach Jari.

In the absence of safer routes, villagers are using makeshift paths. They have repeatedly urged the administration and the hydroelectric project company to repair the damaged road, but there had been little progress.

Malana panchayat president Raju Ram has called for immediate intervention by the district administration. He says that the two deaths could have been averted had the footbridge been restored in time. He adds, “We have repeatedly urged the district authorities to repair the road and restore the bridge, but to no avail. People are forced to travel on risky routes everyday.”