A four-member enquiry team has left for Kathmandu to investigate the reasons and issues surrounding the death of Everest-climber Sajal Khaled and retrieve his belongings.
The team was scheduled to take a flight out of Dhaka at 4pm Wednesday and has likely already reached their destination. Tahmina Khan Shaily, Sajal’s wife, confirmed the news of what she called the “Sajal Mission” in a facebook status.
Besides Shaily, other members of the team are Shahjahan Mridha Benu, vice-president of Mountaineering & Trekking Club, Shamsul Alam Baboo, an expert on mountaineering, and Sajal’s brother-in-law Nasir Khan Saikat.
Commenting on the visit’s purpose, Shahjahan Mridha Benu told the Dhaka Tribune that they would collect Sajal’s death certificate as well as his summit certificate (issued by the Nepalese government), which the Bangladesh embassy in Nepal had failed to manage.
“We have consulted with the ministry of tourism and other ministries prior to finalising the trip. In addition to collecting those certificates, we would search for and retrieve Sajal’s (mountaineering) equipment and other belongings, and also file a general diary in this regard,” he said.
He also said they would scrutinise the reports of irregularities committed by Sajal’s Sherpa associates who had “abandoned” him in a death zone, although they were given large sums of money to help him on his descent from the Everest.
“Sajal died because of his Sherpa companions who left him for dead in a risky zone of the Everest. He died there after fighting for his life for 24 hours.
“Sherpas take a lot of money to help aspiring Everest climbers during their ascents and descents. They are paid to stay put and help them out while in danger, but there is no legal framework for that. We would approach the Nepal Mountaineering Association so that it takes initiatives in this regard,” he said.
Shahjahan also commented on the attempted recovery of Sajal’s body, saying, “The government of Bangladesh had hired a Sherpa team for $20,000 to recover his dead body.”
“But they failed to do that and even claimed to have seen no body at all, although one member of the team later confessed (to some other mountaineers) to having seen one.
“Interestingly, once the government took initiative to recover Sajal’s body, the Sherpa group that had accompanied him during his Everest ascent said they could’ve brought back the body if they were paid the fee.
“The question that comes to our mind is: why did they abandon him first if they could stay with him? We would raise these issues to the Nepalese authorities and demand justice so that no more lives are lost in mountaineering.”
Sajal Khaled, 35, died in May while descending from the world’s highest peak, a few hours after successfully climbing it as the fifth Bangladeshi to do so. His dead body is said to be lying somewhere on the South Summit, about 28,750 feet above the sea level.
Sajal hailed from Munshiganj’s Srinagar area and was the youngest of six siblings. Besides Everest, he climbed the Mera Peak and Chulu West and also directed a children’s movie called ‘Kajoler Dinratri’.
