Ahmedabad : The London-bound AI 171 flight crashed shortly after take-off in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad. Out of the 260 deceased, 52 were British nationals. Their remains were identified by genetic testing and dental records and transported to the United Kingdom. The Daily Mail has now reported that the identification and transportation of bodies was botched up in multiple cases.
In at least two cases, families of deceased got wrong bodies and remains. In one case, relatives had to abandon funeral plans after they learnt that the coffin they received contained the wrong body. In another case, remains of multiple persons were wrongly put together in a coffin and given to a family. In the second case, the remains were separated and the family went ahead with the funerals with the remains that were identified with their relative.
The newspaper reported that there are fears that there could be more such cases where families could have been handed over wrong bodies or remains. It said that an enquiry was taking place in the matter and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was expected to raise the matter with Indian PM Narendra Modi, who embarked on a visit to the UK on Wednesday.
Our loved ones were British citizens. They deserved better in life. They certainly deserved better in death, the relative said. The families told the newspaper that they did not see their deceased relatives, but had to rely entirely on the labelling provided by Indian authorities.
On their part, the Indian authorities took DNA samples and also referred to dental records to determine which body or remains belonged to whom. Nobody looked at the remains. We weren’t allowed to. They just said ’this is your mother or father’ and gave us a paper label with an ID number on it. We had to take their word for it.