Mangalore crash: Desperate relatives seek DNA identification

Overcome by desperation, distraught relatives of victims of Air India Express air crash here are putting pressure on authorities to expedite DNA tests to identify bodies, which doctors say might take a long time.

Father of Mohamed Ali, a cabin crew member, said he had asked authorities to expedite the DNA process, which official sources here said would begin only later in the day giving further time for identification of charred bodies.

"We want the DNA process to begin immediately so that we
can be free of the unbearable agony," Ali's father who flew
here from Bhopal by a flight arranged by Indian Airlines said.

The parent of another victim expressed anguish over the 'long delay' in identification of dead bodies through DNA tests.

In one case, two families from Kerala have claimed the same body, but it would be handed over only after DNA test, officials said.

Senior doctors at the government Wenlock Hospital said it would normally take 10 to 15 days for a DNA test, but in the present case, DNA experts from Hyderabad have assured that the process would be expedited.

The DNA expert team, led by Dr Madhusudan Reddy arrived here from Hyderabad this morning.

As authorities told families that the process would take long, a close relative of a victim Mohamed Aslam wondered why a country like India does not have a mobile testing unit to address calamities of greater magnitude. "The government should address the issue with all seriousness," he said.

More family members of victims have started pouring into the Government Wenlock Hospital, hospital sources here said.

Of 166 killed in the crash, around 55 are from adjoining Kasaragod and Kannur districts of neighbouring Kerala.

An Air India representative here said the carrier had made arrangements to provide free coffins to family members to shift the bodies after identification.