After an ‘agonising' wait, body of last AI-171 passenger handed over to family
A late-night call from the Gujarat government on Friday confirmed the DNA match for 32-year-old Anil Khimani, a passenger on the ill-fated Air India AI-171 flight that crashed on June 12. The news, after an 'agonising' wait, brought renewed grief to the Khimani family in Kutch district's Dahinsara village despite having performed a 'symbolic funeral' the previous day, seeking closure. The family will now be holding a second funeral back at their native place.
Anil Khimani's brother, Rakesh, told The Indian Express on Saturday, 'We received a call late on Friday night and were told that my brother's body has been found… It will at least give us the solace of knowing that we were able to give him a respectful farewell. Otherwise, we would have been hounded with a lifelong guilt that we could not even find his body.'
On Saturday, members of the Khimani family arrived in Ahmedabad to collect his mortal remains and head back to their village to perform the final rites.
Anil Khimani, a skilled tile setter known for his precision in the village, was a passenger, who boarded the ill-fated flight on Seat 21G, as per the flight manifest. He was travelling to the UK for the first time, at the invitation from his 'distant relatives' on a visitor visa for six months.
Anil's body was the final one among the 260 confirmed fatalities, including 241 passengers of AI-171, to be identified via DNA matching.
Adding that the family would perform the final rites with the mortal remains as soon as it arrives in Kutch on Saturday, Rakesh said that the wait for the family had been an 'agonising one'.
'After the crash, my father first gave his DNA sample but we received a call a few days later saying that no match had been found and another member should submit a sample. So, I took my mother from Kutch to Ahmedabad but no match was found until Friday night… At one point, we thought, we would not be able to find his body. So, with the advice of our community priests, we performed the last rites on Thursday with an effigy…'
Rakesh adds that receiving Anil's body will help the family grieve. He said, 'We do not know if the pain will ever go away… We can never see him again and what happened was unimaginable. But finding his body will help us grieve and try to cope with life without him…'
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