Saviour from Gwalior brings Kanpur girl back from Uttarakhand

KANPUR: Amidst heart-rending tales of disaster in Uttarakhand, there was a glimmer of hope for the family of 10-year-old Shivani Gupta. A resident of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday called her family in Kanpur to inform about her well-being.
Ever since the news of flash-floods, clouds and landslide in Kedarnath flashed on television channels, Shivani's uncle Harimohan Gupta has been frantically trying to trace whereabouts of his brother Ramesh Gupta and his wife Geeta Gupta, who had left for the Char-Dhaam Yatra on June 6 along with their neice Shivani Gupta.Harimohan told TOI that he had been frantically trying to contact Ramesh ever since the flash-floods but in vain.
In a bid to locate his brother's family and neice Shivani, the lawyer had tried all helpline numbers in hospitals at Jolly Grant but in vain. "There was no news about them. Hope was fast fading away. Then I received a call. The caller identified himself as Mritunjay Goswami of Gwalior. He asked me to visit his city and informed that he had rescued a girl from the Kedar Valley. The girl had identified herself as Shivani," said Harimohan.
After the call, Harimohan immediately rushed to base came in Hardwar and from there he travelled to Gwalior. Finding his niece Shivani standing alive before him was a moment of bliss for him.
However, happiness was soon replaced by despair as he inquired about his brother Ramesh Gupta and his wife Geeta. A visibly shaken Shivani broke down. Unable to express the horror that she survived, Shivani was inconsolable. "The two were swept away in flash flood and have been missing since," a sobbing Shivani told Harimohan.
Goswami later told Harimohan that he found Shivani lying unconscious between huge boulders. "He carried Shivani to the base camp and then to his home in Gwalior. Initially, he was unable to fathom ways to locate her family. Then he called up his lawyer friends in Kanpur. His friends then helped him trace our location," said Harimohan.
For Shivani, it was akin to a horror show. "It was raining. My uncle asked me to wear a raincoat," she said. In fact, it was the last time that she saw her uncle and aunt. Soon the flash floods arrived unleashing the destruction and death.
"We were staying on the second floor of a 'dharamshala' in Kedarnath. There were landslides. Then flash floods arrived and pulled me out of the dharamshala. It was horrifying. My uncle and aunty were swept away," she said.
Meanwhile, a family from Kanpur South's Naubasta, which had been praying for the well-being of their relatives four the last four days, on Saturday broke down as their relatives returned home safely. They were among the many pilgrims stranded in Uttarakhand for whom the uncertainty ended on Saturday when a group of five arrived from Haridwar.