West Bengal climbers reach Everest peak

By Manik Banerjee, Kolkata, May 17 : A mountaineering team from India's West Bengal state performed one of the rare feats when two of its members became the first civilian expedition from the state to climb the top of Mount Everest on Monday morning.

According to a message received from the expedition base camp at Solo Khumbu in Nepal, expedition leader Basanta Singha Roy and another member Debabrata Biswas of Mountaineers Association of Krishnanagar (MAK) reached the top of the world's highest mountain at 7.40 a.m. Monday.

The message said, the duo set out from their summit camp at South Col above 26,000 feet at around 10 p.m on Sunday night and reached their goal after a gruelling climb for about ten hours.

Though there been several attempts since 1991, this is the first civilian expedition from West Bengal to reach the Everest top.

Other members of the expedition were Asok Roy, Sourav Sinchan Mondal and Bivas Sarkar.

Earlier two Bengali climbers Commander Satyabrata Dam and Capt. Shipra Mazumdar also climbed Mt. Everest a few years back; but they were part of expeditions organized by Indian Navy and Indian Army respectively.

Leader of the first successful Indian Everest Expedition in 1965 Capt. M S Kohli congratulated the expedition leader and its members for their fine success; in a message Capt. Kohli said "It's a wonderful news. My congratulations to all of them."

The five member expedition organised by MAK, left for the mountain on April 4 and initially planned to climb the mountain through the route of Rongbook glacier, North Col and North East ridge in Tibet, China.

But they received an early set back when the Chinese government did not allow them to proceed through Tibet after the expedition reached Kathmandu in Nepal; the expedition then changed their plan and decided to go through traditional Khumbu Glacier, South Col, South east ridge route in Nepal.

The expedition then flew to Lukla and after trekking for about a week set up their base camp at Solo Khumbu at 16000 feet on April 14.

Subsequently they moved up to Camp Three at around 24000 feet on Lohtse face and then came back to Base camp for recuperation. They again set out from Base camp for the final push on May 13.

They had to set up their summit camp beyond Camp Three at South Col before leaving for the coveted goal on Sunday night.

West Bengal Sports Minister Kanti Ganguly said a civic reception would be accorded to the team when they reach back Kolkata.