1968 IAF plane crash: Sepoy Singh’s wife waited for him until her death, says son

The wife of Sepoy Narayan Singh killed in the 1968 aircraft crash in Himachal Pradesh had waited for him until her last breath in 2011, her son said on Wednesday as his native village waits to receive Singh’s body, recovered 56 years after the incident on Sunday.
Singh’s body is expected to arrive at his village near Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand on Thursday, 13 years after his wife Basanti Devi’s death.
Singh had gone missing after the Indian Air Force AN-12 transport plane carrying 102 personnel, including four crew members, crashed in the rugged, snow-covered mountains near Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh on February 7, 1968.
In the aftermath of the crash, an official letter informed the family of Narayan’s disappearance. Yet, Devi’s belief in his survival remained steadfast.
“When the first letter arrived, it was in English. The villagers, unable to read, took it to a school principal who read the texts. My mother refused to accept it. She always insisted, ‘If he is dead, where is the body?’” recounted her son, Jayvir Singh Bisht, the village head of Kolpuri in Chamoli, Uttarakhand.
Bisht is the son of Devi from her second marriage. In 1973, with her first husband Singh still missing, Devi’s in-laws arranged her second marriage to Singh’s cousin Bhawan Singh Bisht. Together, they raised five daughters and two sons.
“Even while married, she never stopped thinking or crying about Narayan Singh. She often spoke about him to my eldest sister,” her son said.
“She often wondered why she didn’t receive any compensation if he was truly dead. This uncertainty fuelled her hope,” he added.
For decades, the wreckage of the aircraft and remains of the victims remained lost in the icy terrain.
Later in 2003, the plane’s wreckage was discovered in the south Dhaka glacier by an expedition of the ABV Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports, Manali. The mountaineers also found the remains of a body, subsequently identified as that of Sepoy Beli Ram, an army man who was on the flight.
It also sparked multiple expeditions over the years by the Indian Army, especially the Dogra Scouts, who have been at the forefront of search missions in 2005, 2006, 2013, and 2019. Despite the treacherous conditions and unforgiving terrain, only five bodies were recovered by 2019.
However, the army’s Dogra Scouts recovered the bodies of four personnel from the Dhaka glacier area at a height of almost 16,000 feet, on Monday.
Defence public relations officer, Dehradun, Lt Col Manish Srivastava, said, “When the expedition team of Army’s Dogra Scouts recovered four bodies from the Dhaka glacier, Sepoy Narayan Singh of Army Medical Corps was identified by the paybook (recovered along with his body). The paybook carries financial, medical records and the name of the spouse. Had there been no identification, DNA profiling would have been required. But it wasn’t required in this case.”
“His body was first flown from Himachal Pradesh to Chandigarh, then Chandigarh to Dehradun. It reached Gauchar airstrip and was transported to Rudraprayag, where he was given military honours by the local unit. It will be kept at the civil hospital mortuary for the night. The next morning, the body will be transported to his native village, located around 100 kms from Rudraprayag, by road,” he said.
“He may not have been my biological father, but I will perform all rituals for him, as my mother waited for him her entire life,” concluded Devi’s son.