Chennai: Relatives of the 49 pilgrims, who went missing after the Himalayan deluge on Nepal-China border during their trip to Kailash Mansarovar, have urged the state govt to send a ministerial team along with bureaucrats to the China border and provide information on their whereabouts.A team of relatives, led by members of the Chromepet-based travel agency through which the pilgrims travelled, met secretary of the public department, E Sundaravalli, on Tuesday to highlight their demands. “We spoke to non-resident Tamils’ welfare minister Thennarasu over a call. The main demand is to send a dedicated team of officials, legislators along with a few kin of pilgrims to coordinate search and rescue on the China side. Every official or minister keeps talking about the rescue efforts in Nepal. No one has spoken about the status of victims on the Chinese side,” said Mohan Kumar, brother of Sathya Narayan who led the pilgrims on the trip.The 49 pilgrims, who had embarked on the trip on Aug 14, are yet to be traced after the devastating deluge hit Nepal and parts of China border on Aug 26. They were waiting at the Rasuwagadi China Immigration Centre on the Chinese side of the border, awaiting clearances to head to Kathmandu (Nepal), when the tragedy stuck.“Relatives of pilgrims are in distress as they have had no answers for more than 20 days now. We have also provided our blood samples for DNA confirmation. Authorities said there were issues with the format, and we have also given them again. All we ask is clarity and efforts to find our relatives,” Mohan added.
