Search ops for missing mountaineer called off

Darjeeling: A shadow of uncertainty descended over the family members of missing mountaineer Pemba Sherpa's after search operations were abandoned in the Karakoram Range where he had gone missing a couple of days ago.

Veteran mountaineer Pemba Sherpa, who had scaled Mount Everest eight times and successfully summited six of the world's highest peaks, went missing between camp 2 and camp 1 after summiting Saser Kangri IV (7,416 meter), a peak in the Karakoram range in Jammu and Kashmir on July 13. A search operation was launched by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and fellow mountaineers.

Another round of rescue operations were launched on July 15 but yielded no result.

"The mountaineers including one of my brothers Tshering had descended partly down the crevasse through which Pemba had fallen. It was pitch dark and they hardly saw anything except for fast moving water which could be more than 40 ft deep. They have called off the search operations and are returning," stated Tashi Sherpa, brother of the missing mountaineer while talking to Millennium Post.

Tashi alleged that the ITBP hardly helped with the search operations.

Tashi, who is also a mountaineer, was part of the expedition but had returned to Darjeeling on July 3 from the base camp owing to ill health. Pemba's mother, wife, two daughters and a son reside at the family house in Ghoom, 8 km from Darjeeling. 47-year-old Pemba was accompanying a team of mountaineers from Mountaineer's Association of Krishnanagar (MAK), West Bengal and Pune, Maharashtra, as a climbing guide.

On June 20, the team led by Everester Basanta Singh Roy had departed from Krishnanagar. The veteran mountaineer from Darjeeling had summited the peak on July

13 morning.