Ahmedabad: A Thakur family in Ahmedabad, the sole tiffin supplier for resident doctors and students at the city’s B.J. Medical College, is since Thursday evening searching the premises of the institute where an Air India plane crashed and exploded.
Two family members, 55-year-old Sarla Ben and her two-year-old granddaughter, who were at the hostel mess of the building, are missing.
The plane crash has led to the deaths of 241 of 242 people on board, apart from casualties on the ground at the hostel building. With bodies burnt beyond recognition, it is not possible to identify the dead.
“Pura parivar hi ujad gaya. Kya hoga maa aur beti ke bina (the family has been torn apart, what will happen without mother and daughter)?” asked Ravi Bhai Thakur, son of Sarla and the little girl’s father. He was at the DNA collection room of the medical college to give his sample along with his other family members.
The Thakur family earns by supplying tiffins at the medical college and lives near the campus.
Ravi said he was at the college premises when the incident happened and his mother and daughter were at the hostel. “My mother with my little daughter had gone to the mess to feed students and doctors there. For years, we have been serving the doctors,” he told ThePrint tearfully.
At the time of the plane crash around 2 pm, students and doctors were having lunch at the mess. Unfinished plates of food can be seen in photos of wreckage of the building and the plane, circulating on social media.
No official count of the number of deaths at the crash site has been given so far and the scores injured are being treated at the emergency ward of the hospital. Five of the Thakur family have given DNA samples to identify whether their members were among the dead.
Sarla’s son-in-law Suresh accompanied the family with his wife. “She (Sarla) always took the little girl with her. The whole family is dependent on the tiffin business,” he said.
Sarla’s daughter Umaben too said the family was feeding the doctors at the time the plane crashed into the building. “Ab kya hoga hamara (what will happen to us now)?” she asked, adding that there was no trace of Sarla and the child.
Around 6 pm Thursday, the family posted a status on WhatsApp regarding their missing members.
“We don’t know whether they are alive or not. The administration hasn’t given any information yet. They collected our samples and asked us to wait for 72 hours,” Ravi said, while supporting his wife Payal, who periodically kept losing consciousness in the hallway.
At the DNA collection centre of B.J. Medical College, five desks have been set up for sample collection, with a number of test tubes placed, overseen by more than 30 lab technicians.
Union home minister Amit Shah told the media that around a thousand DNA tests will have to be done to identify the bodies. He also said the retrieval of bodies was almost complete.
The London-bound flight was carrying 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, a Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals. Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani was among the passengers.
Almost 24 hours after the crash, the site was still full of aircraft debris and the air reeked of smoke, with trees uprooted and burnt.
Friday morning, PM Narendra Modi visited the spot and met the families of the deceased.
Visited the crash site in Ahmedabad today. The scene of devastation is saddening. Met officials and teams working tirelessly in the aftermath. Our thoughts remain with those who lost their loved ones in this unimaginable tragedy. pic.twitter.com/R7PPGGo6Lj
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 13, 2025
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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