The confusion over the identity of passengers charred to death onboard the Bangalore City-Nanded Express was ended on Monday with the Railway authorities confirming the identity of all the 26 deceased passengers, including two children.
Additional Chief Medical Superintendent of Bangalore Railway Hospital Dr. Vasudev said the families of the all the deceased passengers had identified the bodies.
Anil Kumar, a resident of Adoni, who was listed among the dead, was on Monday found to be alive. Also, Kishore Kumar from Vijaywada, who had been listed as missing or feared dead, was also contacted by the authorities.
But Pratap Vinay, 43, an engineer with Cement Corporation of India in Rangareddy district of Andhra Pradesh and Sreenivas from Bangalore, who had been listed as “missing”, were confirmed dead.
A total of 42 have been declared safe, the officials added.
Pratap’s body was among the three more that were claimed by their relatives on Monday, taking the total number of claimed bodies to 14. R.P. Singh, a family friend of Pratap Vinay, said the body was identified through a ring he was wearing.
Pratap’s body was claimed by his father-in-law and brother-in-law, who are making arrangements for taking it to Patna.
He is survived by his wife and two children.
The bodies of Krishnamurthy from Mysore and Aniruddha Kulkarni from Nanded were also claimed.
Krishnamurthy, a senior citizen had been a music critic and retired as an engineer of KPTCL. A friend of his family, Nagabhushan Rao, said that he had booked the tickets for Krishnamurthy’s trip.
“Krishnamurthy had been invited as a guest of honour at the Sangeeta Clorat Vadara in Raichur. . He was travelling to the event when the mishap took place,” he said.
Mr. Krishnamurthy, believed to be in his seventies, is survived by his 92-year-old mother, wife and three children.
While 14 bodies have been claimed, the remaining 12, including those of five women, will be claimed by the families after the DNA report is obtained by Tuesday evening.
The officials said the families had decided to wait for the DNA reports before claiming the bodies. The police have directed the relatives not to cremate the bodies until the DNA report is received.
The officials said the transportation of the bodies would be taken care of by the railway department.
The families of the deceased are being given Rs. 50,000, out of the Rs. 5 lakh ex-gratia announced by the Railways, after identification, while the rest of the compensation will be provided after a formally application is submitted to the Railway Claims Tribunal.
Four of the victims, who had sustained serious injuries in the train accident, have been given Rs. 50,000 and another victim with minor injuries was given Rs. 5,000 for medical expenses,” said Gopinath, Divisional Commercial Manager, South Western Railways.
