Itanagar: The body of the second tourist from Kerala who drowned in the frozen Sela Lake in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang district was recovered on Saturday morning, bringing an end to a joint search operation launched after the incident a day earlier, police said.
The search resumed at around 8 am after it had been suspended on Friday evening due to poor visibility.
Multiple agencies, including the Army, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) from Bomdila, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the district police, were involved in the operation.
Tawang superintendent of police D W Thongon said four divers from the SDRF and the Army were deployed to locate the missing tourist. While underwater visibility initially posed challenges, the body was recovered at around 10.10 am.
Post-mortem examinations of both deceased tourists are being conducted, after which the bodies will be handed over to their families. The victims were identified as Dinu (26) and Mahadev (24), both residents of Kerala.
According to the police, the two were part of a seven-member tourist group that had reached Tawang via Guwahati.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon when one member of the group slipped into the frozen lake.
Dinu and Mahadev entered the water in an attempt to rescue him, but were swept under the icy surface. The third tourist managed to come out safely.
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The district administration received information about the incident at around 3 pm on Friday, following which a rescue operation was immediately launched involving local police, central forces and the SDRF.
Thongon said warning signboards have been installed at Sela Lake and other tourist locations, cautioning visitors against walking on frozen waterbodies.
He added that an advisory had also been issued in December, warning tourists that frozen lakes are unsafe during winter as the ice cover may be fragile and unable to support human weight.
Located at an altitude of over 13,000 feet, Sela Lake is a major tourist attraction in Tawang but becomes particularly hazardous during winter due to extreme cold and unstable ice conditions.
