Army men with mortal remains of the porter at Siachen on Wednesday.

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 2

The body of an Army porter, Thukjay Gyasket (40), a resident of Ayee village near Sasoma in Leh district, was recovered from a crevasse in Siachen today.Gyasket slipped and fell into a narrow crevasse while ferrying stores between forward Army posts in the northern glacier area on February 27. He  is survived by his mother, wife and two daughters.Specialised rescue teams from the Siachen Battle School were immediately launched, said a Defence spokesperson. They were undertaking efforts to locate him for the last four days, he said.“After three days, his body was located about 130 feet inside the narrow crevasse. After locating the body, teams moved inside the crevasse and anchored it to the ice wall to prevent it from slipping further,” he said.“The opening and gap in the narrow crevasse was widened to retrieve the body intact. The mortal remains of the porter have been brought to Hunder near Parthapur and will be handed over to the next of kin after necessary formalities,” he added.Northern Command Chief Lt Gen DS Hooda expressed his condolences to the family of the deceased porter and assured all possible assistance to the family in this moment of grief.He complimented the tireless efforts and unwavering commitment of the rescue team which braved freezing temperatures to locate and retrieve the mortal remains of the porter.

Pampore gunfight: One of attackers was Pak national

Majid Jahangir,Tribune News Service,Srinagar, March 2

Nine days after the Pampore gunfight ended, the J&K Police have claimed to have identified one of the three attackers as a resident of Punjab province of Pakistan.The attack on Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) had left five security men, including three commandos of the elite para unit of Army, dead.Police sources said one of the slain Fidayeen militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had been identified as Abdul Manan alias Abu Waleed, son of Zia-ur- Rehman, hailing from the Wazirabad area in western Punjab. The identity of the other two attackers was being ascertained, they added.“During investigations, we have identified one of the slain militants, who was a Pakistani. The three were part of a group that had freshly infiltrated and indications are they may have reached the Valley at the most 12 days before carrying out the attack,” said a police officer.The police have also recovered a photo of the slain Pakistani militant during the investigation. In the picture, the militant is wearing a white dress, to camouflage in the white snowy background. The picture appears to have been taken somewhere in a mountainous region. He is seen sitting beneath a snow covered coniferous tree, with two assault rifles also visible. There is another man in the picture, but his face is partly visible.  Hafiz Sayeed, the head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), who has been accused of being the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, had praised the Pampore attackers and also led funeral prayers in absentia in Pakistan.After the gunfight ended on February 22, the Army had said they suspected that the three militants, killed in the 48-hour gunfight, had carried out a recce of the area before carrying out the attack. The gunfight had started on February 20 afternoon, when the militants attacked a CRPF convoy in which 11 personnel were wounded, out of whom two succumbed to their injuries.