Jaishankar meets 21 Tamil Nadu pilgrims as 315 Indians stay out of reach

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar stood at Delhi airport on Friday with 21 pilgrims from Tamil Nadu who had been pulled out of the Bhote Koshi flood by the Nepal Army. He posted photographs of the meeting and wrote that he was moved by their account. “Thank the Nepal Army and Government for this rescue effort. Appreciate the Embassy in Kathmandu for their smooth return,” he said on X, in English and in Tamil.

The 21 had travelled for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra through private agents. They were taken first to Kathmandu, then flown home. Jaishankar said they described how the water arrived and how the Nepal Army got them out of a place he called very difficult. He put the wider Indian count in two columns. About 85 Indian nationals have been rescued, including this group. About 315 remain uncontactable. The ministry's formal briefing a day earlier had used 320 missing or uncontactable and 400 people of Indian origin accounted for on the Chinese side. The minister's Friday figure of “slightly over 300” and “around 315” is the same list with the day's corrections.

What India has already flown

Before the airport meeting Jaishankar sat with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal and the missions in Kathmandu and Beijing. The subject was the next lift of relief and the location of Indian nationals on both sides of the border. Two aircraft have already gone. A C-130J left on Wednesday night with 10 tonnes of shelters, blankets, hygiene kits, solar lamps and medicines. A C-17 left Thursday morning with 37.5 tonnes: 28.5 tonnes of tents, blankets, kits, lamps, pumps, kitchen sets and generators, eight tonnes of medicines and one tonne of food. The combined load is 47.5 tonnes. Jaiswal said Bailey bridges would follow to replace crossings the flood tore out.

India has also offered a tunnel-rescue team. Wednesday's water filled tunnels and underpasses along the corridor. A video released by the Nepal Army showed soldiers crawling through mud to reach people trapped in one of those tubes. That is the work the offer is meant to join, if Kathmandu asks for it.

Ninety-six Indians have crossed from Tibet into Nepal, the ministry said earlier. Twenty-one of those who reached Delhi on Friday are the Tamil Nadu group. Other state lists are still being matched against tour-operator manifests. MEA desks are speaking to governments whose residents used the yatra route this season. Infosys said separately that Lax Gopisetty, head of its public-services subsidiary, was in the region in a personal capacity and had not been reached.

The diplomatic line

Jaishankar's public tone was gratitude to Kathmandu, not complaint. Rescue, he said, is being done by Nepal's authorities and forces. India's job is to supply what the Nepal government will take and to keep a line open to Beijing for the Indians on the Tibetan side. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already spoken to Nepal's prime minister, Balen Shah, and offered help. Shah has put his own numbers on the table: 4,451 rescued and 15,431 security personnel deployed in the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli corridor, according to statements circulated on Friday.

Those operational figures sit beside a death toll that agencies still do not lock. Hundreds are confirmed dead. More than a thousand are listed missing in some Nepal tallies. A new barrier lake above the same valley has started to overflow. The 21 who landed in Delhi are the part of the story that has a clean ending. The 315 who have not called home are not.