Siliguri: ‘Posto diye kumro bhaja chai’ — a request for pumpkin fried with poppy seeds delivered from the top of a 270-ft BSNL tower — set off an eight-hour rescue operation in Siliguri on Wednesday night, ending just before midnight when mountaineers finally brought the youth safely to the ground.The youth was first spotted around 4pm atop the mobile tower at Kanchanjunga Stadium, dressed in a red-and-saffron outfit and showing no inclination to descend. Police, fire services, civil defence and disaster management teams rushed to the spot as crowds gathered below.The sheer height made communication from the ground impossible, prompting the Siliguri Police Commissionerate to deploy a drone. The exchange it enabled was unusual. The youth requested ‘posto diye kumro bhaja’ — pumpkin fried with poppy seeds. At another point, he demanded a helicopter ride.“Any attempt to forcibly bring him down, or any sudden movement, could have resulted in a fall,” an official said.With ground-level persuasion failing, authorities called in mountaineer Nehal Sarkar and his team along with civil defence personnel, who climbed the tower to reach him.When verbal persuasion did not work, the team secured him in a stretcher-like arrangement and carefully lowered him down. He reached the ground around 11:30pm — nearly eight hours after he was first spotted.The youth was taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital for observation.ACP (East) Rana Mukherjee said police were working to establish his identity and determine how he entered the stadium and gained access to the ageing tower without being intercepted — a lapse that has raised questions about security at both the premises and the telecommunications structure.
