Missing for 4 days, Delhi tourist found dead in Parvati Valley

Kullu: A 24-year-old tourist from Delhi was found dead on Thursday, four days after he mysteriously went missing from near Malana village in Parvati valley of Kullu in Himachal Pradesh. A search team found the body of Mohit Chaudhary near Waichin rivulet in the afternoon.Mohit, a resident of Delhi Cantonment, arrived in Malana on May 9 along with three friends and a cousin and stayed at a guest house in the picturesque Waichin Valley, say police. He vanished the next morning.According to Manikaran police, Mohit left the guest house on the morning of May 10, saying he was going out to buy some stuff, but never returned. When he didn't turn up for several hours, his friends got worried and went looking for him. They searched in nearby areas and tried calling him, but his phone remained switched off and no contact could be established, says the complaint.Manikaran SHO Sanjeev Walia said the friends returned to Delhi without Mohit on May 11 and informed his family about his disappearance. "The family members arrived at Manikaran on May 12 and lodged a formal missing complaint. A search operation was launched on May 13," Walia told TOI.Rescuers found his body the next afternoon. "Mohit had suffered a head injury. Prima facie, it appears he slipped near the rivulet and fell from a height, hitting his head. The exact cause of death will be clear in the postmortem, which will be conducted in Nerchowk on May 15," said Walia.A senior officer said police were treating it as a mysterious death. "The fact that his friends went back to Delhi without informing police raises questions. Also, it's not clear why Mohit would head for a rivulet alone. We hope to find the answers during our investigations," said the officer.According to police records, as many as 113 people have gone missing in the Parvati valley, which is notorious for the sale of locally grown charas, since 2011. Twenty of them were never found, nor their bodies recovered.According to Chhape Ram Negi, a veteran search and rescue expert who took part in the operation to trace Mohit, said Malana has become a hub of drug sellers and buyers."There was a time when people visited Malana to witness its unique culture and way of life. Today, the village is increasingly being identified only with drugs. Hundreds of people from neighbouring states have set up cafes around Malana, and everyone knows what is being sold there. It is high time govt stepped in to save Malana," said Negi.