SDRF team sets out in search of a missing trekker

A five-member team of mountaineers today set out in search of a Chhattisgarh trekker who went missing on his way to Sundardhunga glacier in Uttarakhand's Bageshwar district nearly a month ago.
The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) team has reached Bageshwar district headquarters and is likely to reach the glacier, at a height of 4320 metres, in four days, Kapkot SDM Ravindra Singh said.
Bagish Chandrakar (29), a businessman from Raipur in Chhattisgarh, last spoke to his sister on September 5, the SDM said.
Local villagers, too, said they spotted him last on September 5 at Jatoli camp, 80 km from Bageshwar, Singh said.

The search for the missing trekker was intensified after his relatives reached Bageshwar and mounted pressure on the administration.
Chandrakar's family members have also requested the authorities to provide a helicopter to the search team.

"We have sought a helicopter for the search team, without which tracing him in the vast snowy terrain of Pindari and Sundandhunga would be difficult," said Priyank Patel, a relative of the missing trekker.
The locals fear that the trekker must have lost his way and hit a rock or became a victim to the wild bears or the biting cold, Singh said.
Registration of trekkers at Jatoli camp is not compulsory and Chandrakar did not inform the local administration prior to his high-altitude trek, the SDM added.