DNA profiling of Andhra bus fire victims to be completed by Monday

DNA profiling of 19 victims of the Kurnool bus fire accident in Andhra Pradesh is expected to be completed by October 27. Most bodies were charred beyond recognition, and identification relies on matching DNA with relatives’ samples.

Kurnool: The DNA profiling of victims of Andhra Pradesh bus fire accident will take 48 hours and is expected to be completed by October 27, said an official on Saturday.

As many as 19 passengers travelling in the private bus and a motor bike rider were charred to death in the wee hours of Friday after it collided with a two-wheeler at Chinnatekuru village of Kurnool district. There were 44 passengers in the bus and several managed to escape the fire.

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Kurnool district collector A Siri said samples from 19 bodies were collected and sent to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Vijayawada. “I am informed that it (DNA profiling) will take 48 hours. We are also arranging ambulances and vehicles that day so that as and when the results come we will transport those bodies to their respective places,” Siri told PTI.

Out of the 19 bodies, one could not be identified as no one claimed it, she said, while the DNA profiling will exactly match the bodies to its family members.

Relatives of 16 bodies have given their samples for the DNA profiling while two more are reaching Vijayawada today for this purpose, she said.

According to Siri, bodies were completely charred beyond recognition and without doing DNA profiling their identity cannot be established correctly.

The flesh is completely charred and has become black and only the trunk part is left in most of the cases, she observed.

Currently, all the bodies are being preserved in Kurnool Government General Hospital (GGH) and they will be handed over to their relatives once the DNA samples arrive, she said. A consignment of cell phones stocked in the luggage rack of the bus had aggravated the fire accident. I have seen a few boxes of unburnt cell phones, said the collector.

“The bus batteries, presence of flammable furnishings in the bus and the cargo consisting of cell phones aggravated the fire leading to the tragic event,” Kurnool SP Vikrant Patel said in an earlier statement.