Anger grows as relatives plead with authorities to return bodies of their loved ones after the flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick crashed in a fireball with 270 killed
There is growing anger today as relatives of the Air India crash victims demand the bodies of their loved ones are returned. There were distressing scenes at hospitals as mums and dads and sons and daughters pleaded with the authorities to release remains for burial. Among them was Abdullah Nanabawa, the father of Akeel Nanabawa, who died alongside his wife Hannaa Vorajee and their four-year-old daughter Sara.
Mr Nanabawa, who grew up in Newport, South Wales, was flying back to his home in Gloucestershire with his wife and child. Abdullah told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Release the bodies of my relatives. This is unfair. They won’t let me inside the mortuary. I’m his father. It’s my right to see him, no matter how broken, how burned. I have to face this.‘I should have died instead, he was taken away.’ He spoke of the shock of watching graphic footage which appeared to show body parts strewn across a large room inside a morgue. Ayub Sheikh was pictured gesturing angrily as he waited for the bodies of four relatives to be released.
Hannaa Vorajee’s cousin, Ameen Siddiqui, 28, from Surat in Gujarat, said their home had been ‘alive with laughter’ at Eid, reunited with their British relatives. He said: ‘We’ve been coming to the hospital every day since the crash, morning till midnight, and no one tells us anything. It’s as if we’re invisible. They won’t even confirm if their bodies are inside. Officials keep repeating, ‘wait 72 hours.’ Seventy-two hours for what? We’re not even allowed past the gate. Even the people at the helpline don’t answer our queries. There is a wall of silence while our dead lie inside, unacknowledged.The worst pain is not just that we lost them, but that we can’t even see them, can’t say goodbye, can’t know.
‘None of us imagined it would be our last Eid together or that the next time we’d gather, it would be to wait outside a hospital, begging for answers.’ The remains of 24 victims have today been returned to their families – but none of them were British. Additional Civil Superintendent Dr Rajnish Patel said: ‘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.’The identities of more of the victims is started to emerge today. Recently married Lawrence Daniel Christian, 26, was in India after the death of his dad He posed for a heartbreaking final picture with his mother, Raveena, at Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, moments before boarding the flight to London, where he lived with his wife.
His aunt said: ‘We tried calling him repeatedly after seeing the news. We rushed to the plane crash site and saw the plane completely destroyed. We lost Lawrence Christian in this crash, just days after we lost his father.’ A family friend said his widow, who had stayed in London, was shattered, adding: ‘She keeps saying this must be a mistake.’ Kamlesh Chaudary, 27, from London, was described by a friend as the ‘sole bread winner’ for his family in Ahmedabad. He was killed alongside his wife Dhapuben, who he was bringing back to settle in the UK with him.
There was also a minute’s silence at a village fete in memory of a shopkeeper and ‘pillar of the community’ who died in the crash. Ketan Shah, 43, one of 53 Britons on the doomed flight, ran the community store in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire. He is survived by his wife Megha, teenage son and daughter. Staff at the shop said: ‘It is a very difficult time for us as we need to process this tragedy. Ketan loved this village and its people.’
Nearly £500,000 have been raised for too young sisters left orphaned after their father died in the Air India plane crash. Arjun Patoliya, from Harrow, London, had travelled to India to fulfil the dying wish of his 42 year old wife Bharti who died of cancer in May.
He had scattered her ashes in Gujarat before boarding the doomed flight to Gatwick to return home to his two daughters Jiya, eight, and four year old Roya. A GoFundMe campaign launched by family and friends has raised £493,000 for the girls to ‘secure their future’ with the cash being put into a legal trust.