After losing family, a painful wait

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 mother's body, which will require DNA tests as another person has also laid claim to it.

Raj's 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 Raj's 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 family's 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.

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