Missing SDM's family announces reward

With Uttarakhand government's efforts to trace him drawing a blank, the family of Almora SDM Ajay Arora, who fell into the Mandakini River on July 31, has announced a reward of Rs two lakh for anyone who finds him.
"We were forced to announce the reward when we saw that despite over a week after the accident, the state government has failed to trace him," the missing SDM's father Krishan Lal said.
Arora, in his forties, met with the accident as he slipped off a makeshift log bridge over Mandakini while returning from Kedarnath shrine to Garuruchatti basecamp in Rudraprayag district on July 31.

A 14-member team of trained PAC divers has been scouring the river at Gaurikund, Rambada and Phata areas in search of him ever since the mishap occurred but to no avail.
His wife Mona complains that the official was sent to Kedarnath despite the fact that he was unwell and had been advised two weeks' rest by doctors in Dehradun.
"Doctors at City Heart Centre, Dehradun had advised him two week's rest and he had also approached his superiors asking for leave but still he was sent to oversee clean-up operations at the high altitude shrine," a disconsolate Mona told PTI.

A 1998 batch PCS officer, the Almora SDM was engaged in clean-up operations under way at the Himalayan shrine which bore the brunt of the June calamity in the state.