Identities of 18 Uttarakhand tragedy victims established

Dehradun: Identities of 18 victims of Uttarakhand natural calamity, out of a total of 630 bodies recovered from Kedar valley since the start of combing operations last year, have been established, police said on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_1607169” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] A 191 people from different states had submitted DNA samples of their kin, who went missing from the valley during the disaster that ravaged the hill state last year. Eighteen of those samples, have matched with those provided by Uttarakhand police to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Hyderabad, media cell in-charge of state police, Pradeep Godbole said. The claimants, who had approached the police with the DNA samples of their missing kin, hail from different states including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir, he said. Since the start of combing operations last year, a total of 630 bodies were recovered and disposed of in Kedar valley which suffered extensive damage in last year’s deluge in which thousands were killed and thousands went missing. “We had sent the DNA samples provided by 191 persons of the relatives who had gone missing after the tragedy. Eighteen of the DNA samples have matched so far with the ones provided by Uttarakhand police to FSL, Hyderabad,” he said. The bodies which continued to be found in Kedar valley until recently even a year after the tragedy have been cremated by the police after their DNA sampling and other formalities amid Vedic rituals. Uttarakhand police have requested families which lost their kin in the tragedy to submit their DNA samples to the cops either by coming to Dehradun or to the police in their own respective states which will direct them to Uttarakhand police. “We request all such families to come forward and give the DNA samples of their missing kin. This will help us establish the identities of more and more tragedy victims,” Godbole said. PTI