Headlines
Mountaineer Mastan Babu's body to be brought home in couple of days
Hyderabad, April 17
The body of Malli Mastan
Babu, India's top mountaineer who died while scaling a mountain between
Argentina and Chile, will be brought home in a couple of days, union
minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said.
He told reporters here on Friday
that the body will be flown in from Argentina to Chennai and from there
will be taken by road to his village in Nellore district of Andhra
Pradesh.
Naidu, who also hails from the same district, said he
was in regular touch with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to
make arrangements for bringing the body.
The 40-year-old Mastan
Babu went missing on March 24 while trying to scale solo a mountain
Cerro Tres Cruces Sur. He was found dead on April 3.
Naidu said
all efforts by fellow mountaineers and even by army helicopters to bring
down the body from the mountain failed because of adverse weather.
Finally,
a group of professional mountaineers brought down the body with the
government of India spending one lakh dollar on this effort.
The
minister said all formalities including the paper work had been
completed and the authorities handed over camera and other personal
belongings of Mastan Babu to his sister Malli Dorasanamma.
The
mortal remains were brought to Buenos Aires for autopsy. After embalming
and completion of other formalities, it will be flown to India.
The
top mountaineer had achieved the feat of becoming the "fastest seven
summiteer" in the world (172 days in 2006, during which he climbed seven
summits on seven days of the week in each calendar month).