Saharanpur village poised to bid goodbye to air force sepoy missing since '68 plane crash

His younger brother, Isam Singh, 68, said Malkhan Singh joined the Air Force when he was 20. He died in the crash three years later, leaving behind his wife Sheela Devi and son Ram Prasad, who was 18 months old. Sheela, who had married Malkhan's other younger brother Chandrapal after his death, is dead, so is his son, Isam said.

"Village elders used to tell children stories about Malkhan. The whole village now awaits his arrival to give him a proper departure. It's God's blessing that his body is coming in the 'Pitra Paksha'. He will finally get 'Mukti'," Isam said.

Malkhan would have been 79 now if he were alive, he said with tears in his eyes. "He always wanted to join the Air Force. Seeing planes flying above the field, he used to say that he would join the force, which he ultimately did," he said.

"The whole extended family which grew up on Malkhan's legend will now get a chance to see him finally," Isam said. Malkhan Singh's descendent are his grandsons Gautam and Manish, and granddaughters Sonia, Seema, and Monica.

While Gautam and Manish drive an auto in Saharanpur, Sonia and Seema are married. Monika, 19, is still studying. Of all his siblings, only Isam and sister Chandrapali are alive. Sultan Singh and Chandrapal, Malkhan's other younger brothers, died over the years.

ASP Jain said that Malkhan Singh was identified through a batch found near the body. "Army informed us that the body was not completely damaged as it was in the snow. His family members can identify him," the officer said.

Malkhan Singh had gone missing in a 1968 aircraft crash in the snow-clad mountains of Himachal Pradesh's Rohtang. He was on an AN-12 aircraft of the Indian Air Force. Malkhan Singh, along with four more plane passengers, was found by a joint team of Dogra Scouts of the Indian Army and Tiranga Mountain Rescue.

The twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft, carrying 102 people, had gone missing on February 7, 1968, while flying from Chandigarh to Leh. "In an extraordinary development, the ongoing search and rescue mission to recover the remains of personnel from the AN-12 aircraft, which crashed on Rohtang Pass in 1968, has achieved significant breakthroughs," an officer said.

For decades, the wreckage and remains of the victims remained lost in the icy terrain. It was only in 2003 when mountaineers from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering discovered the wreckage, sparking multiple expeditions over the years by the Indian Army, especially the Dogra Scouts. Only five bodies of the victims were recovered by 2019 given the treacherous conditions and unforgiving terrain.