Air India Crash: ‘Give Us Whole Body, Not Partial Remains,’ Families Plead As 2 Heads Found In One Body Bag

As the families of victims grieve following the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, the struggle for them continues as the identification of victims is encountering hurdles. In one of the cases, two heads were found in the body bag, reports Times Of India, necessitating a repeat of the entire DNA testing procedure, which takes around 72 hours. ‘Give us whole body, not partial remains,’ said families of Ahmedabad crash victims.

“This will require the DNA sampling process to be repeated, as the parts belong to two victims and shouldn’t be in the same bag,” said a senior official at the Civil Hospital as quoted by TOI.

Earlier on Saturday, a man was seen pleading with the officials to hand over all the remains of his family members for the last rite. However, he was informed that it was an improbable task. 

According to TOI quoting an official, it was tough to convince them. Another official said that there is an established clinical protocol that includes placing the remains in the body bags, transferring them to cold storage, conducting analysis and finally handing over the identified remains in coffins to the families. The official also said that it cannot be assured that the families of retrieval of complete body parts of the victims, as the remains are charred.

The authorities have so far identified 47 victims through DNA testing, and the bodies of 24 have been handed over to their families, reports news agency PTI, quoting officials. As many of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition or damaged otherwise, authorities are carrying out DNA tests to establish the identity of victims of the horrific tragedy.

A total of 47 plane crash victims have been identified so far through DNA matching. Of these, bodies of 24 victims have been handed over to the respective families. These deceased were from Rajasthan and different parts of Gujarat, Additional Civil Superintendent Dr Rajnish Patel.

All but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 787-8 (AI171) and another 29 persons, including five MBBS students, on the ground were killed in the plane crash on Thursday. The aircraft crashed into the campus of a medical college in Meghaninagar moments after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1:39pm on Thursday. 

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