A newly married couple from Uttar Pradesh has gone missing after their vehicle fell into the Teesta River in Sikkim amid heavy rains, reports said.
The tragic incident took place on May 29 when Kaushalendra Pratap Singh (29) and his wife Ankita Singh (26), along with seven other tourists—two from Uttar Pradesh, two from Tripura, and four from Odisha—were returning from Lachen to Lachung.
All tourists, along with their local driver, remain missing while the search operation launched by the state and national disaster response forces is still underway.
According to reports, Kaushalendra is a nephew of BJP leader Ummed Singh. He married Ankita at Dhangadh Sarai Chivlaha village on May 5. The couple left for Sikkim on their honeymoon on May 25 and reached the Mangan district the next day.
Police have recovered their belongings from the hotel room but have yet to get any conclusive evidence to confirm whether they have drowned in the river.
Meanwhile, the family members of the missing couple have reached Sikkim and met senior police officers.
The hilly state has been hit by heavy rains and multiple landslides for the last few weeks, disrupting road and telecommunication connectivity in several areas.
Around 2,000 tourists had been stranded in north Sikkim's Lachen, Lachung and Chungthang towns due to inclement weather conditions for days before being evacuated by road and air in rescue operations earlier this week.
On June 1, a major landslide was reported at an Army camp in Chetan in which three army personnel were killed and six others went missing. Rescuers later recovered three bodies from the mishap site.