Epilogue

It was eight in the morning and a police jeep came to a halt near a milestone which read ‘Kimpri-17Kms’.

Nathan, Dhiru and group of four policemen disembarked from the vehicle. They had spotted a white gypsy parked in a clearing and a senior police officer ordered one of his men to check it out. Nathan along with Dhiru and two other men started climbing up to the cottages…

After three hours of extensive search, it was futile searching any more. The huts were empty. There was no luggage or any signs of them being inhabited the night before. No signs of fire, no particular odour, nothing. The man who checked on the white gypsy came back just observing that a note put up on the windshield of the vehicle was missing. It was never found.

The search continued for three days, the team being joined in by more policemen from Palampur, but yielded nothing. After three days the parents and guardians of the students were notified and for some curious reason, Nathan and Dhiru were taken into custody by Palampur Police. Dhiru was released two days later and Nathan had to appear for a court case against him, referring to negligence of duty, filed by the parents of the missing children.

Nathan lost and won the case in a way. He was sentenced as guilty but the jury recommended a ‘sentence served’. So he was guilty and was free to go. He left his job with the university and discharged Dhiru from his duties.

A month later the following article appeared in a local newspaper, The Palampur Daily.

Our local correspondent, Kimpri, 11th May, 1990.

The ‘Guide Cottages’ as they were popularly known, seventeen kilometers from Kimpri,on a hill top, were destroyed in a devastating fire last night. Local authorities say that they could not determine the cause of the fire. “After heavy snow during the past month, the ground dried up fast due to excess and sudden heat, so the cause may be purely natural”, commented one of the few locals of the nearest village, Kimpri. Since the fire started at night the exact cause could not be determined, and by the time the authorities could react the fire had engulfed the entire hill top destroying everything in its path. It was, however contained early morning and avoided from spreading further. Rumor has it that the fire was the work of a local villager, Rampal, who was known to be mentally unstable. He was last seen at a local shop the previous evening, with an oil canister. “Most of us thought it was empty, he wasn’t the kind of person who would harm anyone”, commented a local villager. If the rumor is true, Rampal’s body was not found in the jungle, and he hasn’t been seen since then in the village. In January, this year, four students had been reported missing at the same site. They were never found. [For details covering past incident c.f. The Palampur Daily, 25th January 1990, Pg.4, Col 3, Hd. ‘Students go missing in Kimpri’].