After losing family,a painful wait

TN express fire: ITBP man who lost five of family awaits DNA report to confirm mothers body

David Raj,an Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel,lost his mother,wife,two daughters and brother-in-law in the fire that broke out in S-11 coach of the Tamil Nadu Express near Nellore on Monday. His ordeal did not end there. He will now have to wait for at least a fortnight to claim his mothers body,which will require DNA tests as another person has also laid claim to it.

Rajs family members were returning from Delhi after visiting him. In the early hours of Monday,Raj received a call from his wife Ponmani who told him that the train was nearing Vijayawada and only a few hours were left to reach Chennai. From Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu,they were to proceed from Chennai with the help of Rajs friends who were waiting at the Chennai Central station.

Some time later,his friends called to inform him about the fire. He took the first flight to Chennai and rushed to Nellore across the border,praying for his familys safety. But at the station waiting room,which was converted into a mortuary,his fears came true.

Raj identified the charred remains of his mother Elizabeth,47,Ponmani,29,daughters Rose Mary,4,and Jasmine,3,and brother-in-law Thavamani,25.

Even as he was completing the formalities to collect the bodies and take them to Tirunelveli,another family laid claim to the body which Raj had identified as that of his mother based on the sari she was wearing,one which he bought for her not too long ago. Now we have to wait for DNA test to ascertain the identity, said a relative. With a heavy heart,the family returned with the other bodies Tuesday morning.

At the Narayana Hospital,N S Veena from Madurai is in a critical condition,while her one-year-old son is under treatment in the paediatric ward of the same hospital. Since morning,her father Jagadeeshwaran has been running around from hospitals to mortuaries,trying to locate his son-in-law and four-year-old grandson who are yet to be traced.

Veena and her husband Venkatesh Babu were on the way to Chennai where she was to attend an interview. She and their second child managed to get out of the burning coach but the fate of her husband and elder son is not known.

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Riaz Ahmed Bhat,30,from Pulwama in Jamp;K,was on way to Chennai from where he was to go to Annamalai University for an MPhil entrance. His younger brother Javed,an MBA student at the university,identified his body. Our parents know about an accident but we havent told them that he died, said an inconsolable Javed. He took the body on an ambulance to Chennai from where it will be flown to Kashmir.