In a shocking incident, mortal remains of Captain Ankit Gupta, 28, who went missing after he jumped into a Jodhpur lake as part of his training last week was found in Jodhpur's Kaylana Lake after a five-day-long search operation in 46-ft deep water.
Captain Ankit Gupta of 10 Para (Special Forces), the Army's specialised unit for desert warfare, had jumped into Kalyana Lake from a helicopter on Thursday as part of the training exercise but could not come up with other trainees, police had said, fearing that he might have drowned.
Marine commandos of Indian Navy's MARCOS team scanned 46-ft deep water
Since then, teams of police, civil administration, Army, and Navy continued the search for Captain Ankit Gupta. On Monday, dozens of divers including marine commandos of Indian Navy's MARCOS team scanned the lake in about 100 square metres manually, using water cameras to trace Captain Ankit Gupta. However, he still remained untraceable.
According to members of search teams, he was not being traced despite aggressive efforts, and chances of finding him alive seemed quite bleak.
The bottom of the lake is said to be rocky with cracks and abandoned fishing nets. The most plausible reason seems to be that Captain Ankit Gupta may have got trapped in the rock, silt and nets and failed to come up. On Saturday, a special team of Navy commandos had joined the search operation.
Teams of the NDRF, SDRF and the Army constantly searched for him. Hailing from Gurgaon, Captain Ankit Gupta had married just a month ago and had returned to complete his special training.
(With inputs from agencies)
