Ahmedabad air crash: Gujarat govt conducts last rites of remains of 19 bodies

Indian Express

3 days ago

The Gujarat government, 26 days after the fatal Air India AI 171 flight crash in Ahmedabad, conducted the final rites of the remaining parts of the victims' bodies on Tuesday. These remains were either identified after most parts of the bodies had been handed over to the families, or were found later.
A total of 26 remains of bodies were found or identified after families of the 260 deceased, who were on board the flight on June 12, were handed over their bodies over the past month.
While only seven families collected the remains for the second time, after the initial handover, 19 families gave their consent to the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital for the final rites, to be carried out as per protocol.
The last rites were held in the presence of the hospital's superintendent, HOD of Forensic Medicine, medical officer, resident doctors, and Class-4 staff, under the supervision of DCP (Zone-4) Kanan Desai and other police officers.
The hospital, while collecting DNA samples from the relatives of the deceased for identification of the bodies, had informed the families that more portions of the bodies could be found in the future, a statement by the health department pointed out.
After the remains of the bodies of a total of 26 deceased were found later, their families were contacted. 'Seven families took the remains of their relatives for religious rites. The remaining families asked the hospital administration to perform the religious rites on their behalf. Therefore, the last rites of a total of 19 human organs were performed by the government administration,' said the statement.
While one of the remains was buried as it belonged to a victim who was from the Muslim community, last rites for 18 remains were performed as per Hindu rituals and the ashes were immersed in the Sabarmati.