Missing paratrooper’s body found hours after he jumped from aircraft

Siring Dhaba of the Parachute Regiment had gone missing after a training jump Saturday night.

More than 12 hours after a jawan of Indian Army’s Parachute Regiment went missing during routine training near an airbase in Odisha’s Cuttack district, police and rescue personnel recovered his body from deep waters of a dam Sunday afternoon.

File photo of recruits going through rigorous training session at Parachute Regiment Training Centre in Bengaluru. (HT Photo)

Siring Dhaba (35) had jumped from an aircraft during a night training programme on Saturday. While other jawans came back a few hours later, Dhaba did not. His helmet and parachute were found near Haripur dam in Dalijoda forests about 40 km north of Bhubanneswar on Sunday morning. Dhaba hailed from Karnataka. His body was sent for post-mortem.

The Parachute Regiment is based in Bengaluru. No army officials were immediately available for comment.

Sunil Rajwar of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who was part of a joint search and rescue team for Dhaba, said divers fished out the body.

Asked about the likely cause of the tragedy, Cuttack deputy commissioner of police, Akhileswar Singh, said, “We will know the details after a thorough probe.”