Twelve Bodies in Mangalore Air Crash Wrongly Identified: Report

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Mangalore, Oct 7: In a shocking revelation, the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad has found out that as many as 12 bodies in the 2010 Mangalore air crash were wrongly identified by the families of the victims.

The CDFD had been requisitioned to carry out the DNA tests of the victims.

The families of the victims had claimed the bodies based on basic identification marks such as bodily features, jewellery, clothes and so on.

"While this is how it happens, DNA-based identification is more effective as one can be sure with scientific evidence about the identity of the victim," said Dr Madhusudhan R Nandineni, senior scientist with the CDFD told The Times of India (TOI) which carried the report on Friday October 7.
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After the tragedy, bodies of 136 victims were identified and handed over to the families, while 22 others were beyond identification.

"In the DNA profiling that was done for the 22 victims comparing their profiles with 32 relatives who were still waiting to identify their kin, the results that came up threw up a shock," TOI reported.

While the identities of 10 of the 22 bodies were established by the Centre based on DNA tests, the remaining 12 did not match the DNA samples of any of the claimants.

"This only show that in the originally claimed body remains of 136 passengers, 12 had been mistakenly identified and claimed by families believing it to be their kin," TOI added.

The results of the tests have been published in a scientific journal 'Current Science'.

Nevertheless, the last rites for the 12 unidentified bodies were conducted as per norms.