For scores Gupta came as god, then god sent for him

Commandant Nitya Nand Gupta was a happy and a proud man — proud that his team had saved numerous lives working-round-the-clock in a hostile terrain and tough weather conditions for nine non-stop days. Gupta and some of his men were to head home later this week after a job well done but that was not to be.

Updated on: Jun 27, 2013, 24:50:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Commandant Nitya Nand Gupta was a happy and a proud man — proud that his team had saved numerous lives working-round-the-clock in a hostile terrain and tough weather conditions for nine non-stop days. Gupta and some of his men were to head home later this week after a job well done but that was not to be.

Gupta, heading the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) unit in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, and his eight colleagues were among the 20 rescuers who died in the Tuesday’s Mi-17 helicopter crash on way back from Kedarnath, which saw widespread devastation in the June 15-16 flashfloods.

An ITBP man on deputation to NDRF and heading a unit at its Ghaziabad base, Gupta was to call off the operation on Tuesday as all pilgrims had been air-lifted from Kedarnath.

The ITBP and NDRF personnel were the first to reach the temple site and were also instrumental in evacuating thousands of pilgrims through alternative routes through the slippery slopes of the Kedar valley. More than 20,000 people were evacuated from Kedarnath and surrounding areas.

Gupta’s team also rescued about 300 persons stranded in Jungle Chetti after building a make-shift helipad and were the first to provide medical aid to those stranded in Kedarnath.

His 49-year-old colleague, inspector Bhim Singh, who was from Jammu and died in the crash, spent many sleepless nights comforting those who lost their family members, an official said.

“They have done a great job with limited resources and in difficult situation,” NDRF’s IG (Operations) Sandeep Rathore said about Gupta’s team. Though shocked and grieving, the NDRF personnel on Wednesday continued to do what they do the best – saving precious lives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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