Air India plane crash: At police station, passports, jewellery found on bodies also await identification
While the air crash has been registered as an “accidental death” case at the Meghaninagar police station, which has jurisdiction over the site, the Naroda police station has been made the custodian of these belongings.
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Outside the post-mortem room at B J Medical College in Ahmedabad on Saturday. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)At the Naroda police station, about four kilometres from the site where the Air India plane crashed on Thursday, plastic containers with transparent lids are neatly stacked in a space designated as “Kids’ Corner”. These boxes, locked and marked with numbers, contain the belongings of those who were on board the flight — jewellery, passports, phones and other valuables found on the charred remains of their bodies.
After all the bodies of the 241 passengers and crew members who died in the crash are identified, these boxes will be opened and the contents will be handed to their family members after due verification, sources told The Indian Express.
For now, they form part of the muddamal (property seized in connection with a case). They were examined by forensic experts, panchnamas were done, and they were then locked inside these plastic containers, said sources.
While the air crash has been registered as an “accidental death” case at the Meghaninagar police station, which has jurisdiction over the site, the Naroda police station has been made the custodian of these belongings.
This decision was taken at the “highest level”, said sources. “The Meghaninagar personnel were busy with bandobast and other duties, so the rest of the processes will be done by the Naroda personnel,” said sources.
Sources said the process of identification and handing over of bodies and belongings will be done by Air India, with the help of the Ahmedabad City police. According to sources, the bags that were in the cargo hold of the aircraft are in the airline’s custody.
“The bags of the passengers will be handed over by Air India by matching tags and other parts which were intact and recovered from the crash site,” sources told The Indian Express.
The process will be aided by CCTV footage from cameras positioned at the airport’s entry gates. “The footage will be watched closely to match the bags with the passengers,” said sources.
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