Five days after Air India’s AI171 crashed in Ahmedabad last Thursday, suspense and confusion prevailed over the number of casualties.
While officially 248 people, including 241 on board, died and several others were injured, media reports have been quoting different figures. Only Vishwas Kumar, a British citizen, on board Boeing’s Dreamliner, survived.
On the day of the crash, Union home minister Amit Shah had said that the death toll would be given after the DNA samples are matched.
On Tuesday, Movement of Secular Democracy sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking not only that he declare the total number of casualties but also to appoint a high-level judicial committee of experts to look into the “episode”.
Apart from the Air India passengers, three medical students, the wife of one of the doctors, the son of a tea stall owner, and two more people whose identities are yet to be ascertained, have died in the crash impact.
There is also a discrepancy regarding the number of missing people, and media reports quote different figures. Sources told The Telegraph that among the missing are two doctors, Sarlaben Thakor who was making rotis in the mess, her granddaughter who was with her at that time, and a filmmaker.
Thakor’s son Ravi has filed a missing person complaint with the Meghaninagar
police station for his mother and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Aadhya.
She worked in the mess of B.J. Medical College’s canteen, where a portion of the Boeing ripped through the building’s structure. “We have been frantically searching for them. We filed the police complaint the next day. We have also given DNA samples,” Ravi said. He said that they have been made to understand that it will still take a few more days, as there is a large number of samples to be matched.
Filmmaker Mahesh Kalawadia’s mobile phone is said to have been switched off since 1.40pm on Thursday, a minute after the plane took off. He was on his way back home after a business meeting and had taken the route where the plane crashed.
His wife, Hetal, told reporters that the police found her husband’s mobile phone location after she complained that he was missing. She is hoping that her husband is not on the list of victims. However, Hetal said her family has given the DNA samples.
The Movement of Secular Democracy demanded that the Centre should also compensate all the families of the victims and not just Air India passengers. This should be in addition to the compensation that has already been announced by Air India and the Tata Group, it said.
Superintendent of the Civil Hospital, Rakesh Joshi, told reporters on Tuesday evening that so far, 163 DNA samples have matched and 124 bodies have been handed over to the families.
He also said that two patients, who were brought to the hospital, died. He, however, did not specify when. Joshi said that 42 out of the remaining 69 patients have been discharged. According to him, only one patient is critical.