June 1: The bodies of Goutam Ghosh and Paresh Nath, who had died during an Everest expedition last year, reached Calcutta this evening.

Ghosh's body will be kept at Peace Haven tonight before being taken home to Barrackpore via Uttarpara, where he had started a mountaineering club called Bibartan in 2009.

Nath's relatives and neighbours carried the body to Durgapur Steel Plant Hospital, where it will be kept in the mortuary overnight before being taken home to Sarat Chandra Avenue in Durgapur.

Eight Sherpas had toiled for four days to bring the two bodies back to Camp 2 on the Nepal side of Everest (about 6,400m) on May 28. From there the bodies were flown to Kathmandu.

The duo went missing on May 21.

Ghosh, who was an assistant sub-inspector of Calcutta police, was 48 when he died. His body was lying near the Triangular Face, just beyond South Col, at an altitude of about 8,200m.

The body of Nath, who was climbing with Ghosh, was at South Col (7,900m). Nath, who was 52 when he set out to scale the world's highest peak, earned a living by running a stall selling mountaineering equipment.

Around 100 members of mountaineering clubs, including those from Barrackpore and Durgapur, gathered at Calcutta airport and paid their last respects to the mountaineers when coffins containing their bodies arrived.

Nath's wife Sabita told Metro from her Durgapur home over the phone that she was happy that her husband's body would reach home. She is worried about how she would bring up her only son, 10-year-old Avishkar, without her husband by her side.

Ghosh's family said they were indebted to the government for taking the initiative to bring the bodies.

The government had sent a three-member team to coordinate the operation.