Posthumous recognition: G-B to lobby for presidential award for missing climber

Nisar was part of the three-member expedition team including Austrian Gerfried Goschl and Swiss Cedric Hahlen.


Shabbir Mir March 25, 2012

GILGIT:


The Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) chief minister has pledged to pursue a presidential award for Nisar Sadpara, the Pakistani climber who recently went missing along with two others on Gasherbrum I.


“Nisar was a brave climber and he will be awarded a presidential award in recognition of his services for the country,” Chief Minister Mehdi Shah told his family in Skardu. He also announced a job for one family member.

Nisar was part of the three-member expedition team including Austrian Gerfried Goschl and Swiss Cedric Hahlen.

The team went missing while attempting to scale Gasherbrum I, which at 8,068 metres is the second highest peak in the Karakoram Range on the Pakistan-China border, last week.

Though officially declared dead, their bodies have not yet been recovered as Pakistani authorities called off the search operation due to inclement weather.

Nisar Hussan, popularly known as Nisar Sadpara, was the youngest Pakistani climber to conquer K2, the world’s second highest peak. He was 23 when he made it to the 8,611 metre-high K2.

He also scaled Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum-I, II, Broad Peak, which is 8,047 metres, Spantik and Thu Peak.

Nisar was among the few Pakistani climbers to have successfully scaled all the eight-thousanders in Pakistan.

Sakhi Hassan, a Skardu-based mountaineer, told The Express Tribune that the missing climber was 35 years old and a father of three.

He said Nisar used to shepherd sheep like many others in the village and would race them while climbing steep hills. “He would always come first.”

Local hero Hassan Sadpara, who was also part of the surveillance team that searched for the missing climbers, said that the search for the climbers’ bodies would resume in the summer once the weather clears.

Nisar started his mountaineering career in 1996 with a 13-member Pakistan Army expedition which had set out to climb the 7,422 metre-high Sia Kangri peak in east Karakoram. He was one of four expedition members who made it to the top.

Nisar was born in Sadpara, a village located 15 kilometres south of Skardu that was made famous by Hassan Sadpara, who conquered Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, last year without using oxygen support.

Nisar wanted to set a record for the country in mountaineering, but nature had other plans.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2012.

COMMENTS (2)

DevilHunterX | 11 years ago | Reply

How about medals for the victims of Earthquake, Flood, Airplane crashes, Terrorism victims, Ethinc violence victims, Political parties victims, Religious parties victims, ISI victims, Seperatist victims, victims of Victims(tm)?

There has to be a criteria for handing out medals in this country.

ABC | 11 years ago | Reply

A real hero of Pakistan.......

Replying to X

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