Two National Institute of Technology (NIT) students, who had apparently gone for trekking to the famous Shikari Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi, were found dead on Friday. The region has been recording a low of -15°C for more than a week.
Police told the Times of India that the bodies will be handed over to the parents after autopsy. While one of the bodies has been identified as that of Akshay Kumar of Hamirpur’s Sujanpur, the other remains to be identified. Officials suspect it of Bilaspur’s Navneet Rana.
Akshay and Navneet had been missing from NIT’s Hamirpur campus since January 6. Their parents had on Friday lodged a complaint with the police following which a search operation was launched to track down the missing students.
The students had set out to trek the 2850 metres summit without informing their parents. The temple is located 150 km from Manali and is extremely hard to climb during winters when the valley remains blanketed under snow.
As per a PTI report, two other students had accompanied them for the trek. They had informed college authorities that they were going home and had gone to trek instead. Police, however, received missing complaints about only two.
(Feature image for representation/Source: PTI)