Itanagar, Jul 29, 2022, IANS

Five decomposed bodies of Assam workers, who were among the 19 missing from a road construction site in Arunachal Pradesh's border Kurung Kumey district 25 days ago, were located in a dense forest, officials said on Friday.

The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams found the five mutilated bodies in the thick forest between Huri and Tapa in the last two days while another worker was drowned in Furak river and three other remained missing, Kurung Kumey Deputy Commissioner Bengia Nighee told IANS over phone.

He said that the bodies were found in different locations of the forest. The five decomposed bodies could not, however, be brought back.

With these five bodies, the number of deaths in the incident rose to six, the Deputy Commissioner said.

Earlier this week and last week, ten workers were rescued in a very sick condition and they are now recuperating in different hospitals, Nighee said.

He said that the Indian Air Force's chopper operation could not be carried out properly due to bad weather conditions in the mountainous areas.

Nighee, who personally supervised the rescue operation, said that after fleeing from their project site camp at Huri on July 5, the 19 workers had entered a dense forest infested with poisonous snakes and wild animals.

Subsequently, the workers split themselves into different groups and moved in different directions.

He said that a 25-member team of the SDRF, accompanied by the police and local volunteers, had been conducting the search operations for the missing persons in the Damin circle.

The 19 workers, all residents of Assam, had been engaged by a contractor to work for a road construction project undertaken by the Border Road Organisation (BRO). The villagers reportedly informed the police that the workers left their work site after the contractor refused to grant them leave for the celebration of Eid al-Adha.

The workers had taken a shortcut jungle route to return to their homes in Kokrajhar and Dhubri in Assam.