Ahmedabad: When Akeel Mohammad Nanabawa boarded a flight from London to Ahmedabad on 6 June, he didn’t know that it would be to celebrate his last Eid with his family.
Akeel, along with his wife Hannaa and daughter Sara, was among the 242 people on board the Air India plane that crashed moments after it took off from the Ahmedabad airport Thursday afternoon. Just hours before that, they were in high spirits, grateful for a memorable time with the family before their journey back to London.
On Thursday night, a little after midnight, Air India confirmed that 241 of the 242 on board the aircraft had lost their lives in the crash.
Akeel’s father Abdullah Mohammad is waiting for someone to draw a blood sample to identify his son’s body. “He came last Friday to surprise us on Eid. We were very excited to see him and have the family together to celebrate,” Abdullah says, sitting on a bench at the DNA collection centre set up at B.J. Medical College. With him are over 20 of his relatives from Surat.
As families rush in and out, their faces are etched with worry and fear. Now and then, amid anxious whispers, someone breaks down and cries deeply. Everyone is desperate for information. Outside the hospital’s post-mortem section, armed police personnel stand guard, and no one is allowed in except doctors and other medical staff.
The father and son last spoke at around 12.45 pm, when the latter called to say they had completed their security check. Akeel had a jolly personality, says Abdullah, and he loved shooting videos of the family Eid celebrations with his camera.
Akeel was born and brought up in London, where he ran a job placement company, which also has a branch back in Ahmedabad. “He has British citizenship but he often comes to India,” Abdullah says. The family is well-known in Surat’s Rampura area, where they run a private hospital.
On Thursday afternoon, as a news bulletin about the crash aired on TV, their world came crashing down. Abdullah, with several of his relatives, rushed to Ahmedabad.
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 also among the deceased passengers.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu has ordered a probe. Union Home Minister Amit Shah too visited the site Thursday evening.
Ten hours after the crash, the site is still full of aircraft debris. The air reeks of smoke, trees have gotten uprooted, some completely burnt. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officials are fanned out.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ahmedabad on Friday.
Still holding out hope
At the DNA collection centre of B.J. Medical College, five desks have been set up for sample collection, on which a number of test tubes have been placed, overseen by more than 30 lab technicians.
“After receiving the sample, we will match it with the body and after 72 hours we will give a report. The bodies will be handed over after that,” says Indrawadan, a lab technician busy collecting samples. Many of the bodies are so badly burnt that it is impossible to identify them without DNA sampling.
A few hours earlier, Amit Shah told media persons: “Around a thousand DNA tests will be done…DNA samples of the bodies have also been collected…” He’d further said that retrieval of bodies was almost complete.
Like Abdullah, Dhaval (who only goes by his first name) from Vadodara is waiting for information about his uncle and aunt, who were on the flight to London. He is waiting for his father, who is also on his way from Vadodara to give a DNA sample.
In another end of the room, Ramanbhai Patel sits with his arm stretched out as a blood sample is drawn. He has come searching for his granddaughter, Nirali, a dentist and Canadian citizen.
“She did her dentistry course from this medical college and shifted to Canada to pursue her career,” says Patel, accompanied by family members. Their eyes are glued to TV visuals of a woman lying on a bed, who they say looks like Nirali, and they are still hopeful she is alive.
This is an updated report with the correct name of the victims
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)