Frozen man with horse recovered from Kohistan Glacier after 28 years

In an astonishing discovery, the body of a man who vanished 28 years ago along with his horse has been recovered from a glacier in the Palas area of Kohistan, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Sunday.

The man, identified as Naseeruddin, a resident of Palas, had gone missing in 1997 during a journey from Kohistan's Sapat Valley.

According to local residents of the Kohistan region, Naseeruddin and his horse never made it back, sparking decades of mystery and speculation.

To everyone's surprise, his body, along with the horse, was found well-preserved inside the ice of the glacier due to the extreme cold preventing decomposition.

Authorities also recovered his national identity card and other personal belongings, which helped confirm his identity after nearly three decades.

The discovery has stunned the local community, while experts say this is a rare natural preservation phenomenon often seen in high-altitude, glaciated regions.

The glacier lies in Upper Kohistan, now part of Kolai-Palas District, which was created in 2017 after multiple administrative bifurcations of the original Kohistan District.

Kohistan District, also known as Indus Kohistan and Hazara Kohistan, was a district within the Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Consisting of the eastern portion of the larger Kohistan region, it was bifurcated into two districts in 2014: Upper Kohistan and Lower Kohistan.

In 2017, the Lower Kohistan District was further bifurcated, and a district, Kolai-Palas, was established. It has an area of 7,492 square kilometres (2,893 sq mi) and a population of 472,570 according to the 1998 census.

Geographically, Kohistan stretched from Gilgit-Baltistan in the north to the Mansehra District in the east to the Battagram District and Shangla and Swat districts in the west.

Reporter: Zubair Awan