A tiny blue thread tied to a pocket purse. This was all 70-year-old Mohd Mobin finally found of his brother, after three days of looking for him in Panipat. “All the bodies were badly burnt... all the bodies looked the same,’’ Mobin said.

His search for his brother, who was 10 years elder to him, ended at Coffin No. 60. Among the effects Mobin was handed over was the purse, and the 7,000 in Pakistani Rupees and 3,000 in Indian Rupees which his brother was carrying. Mobin’s younger son is preparing to accompany the body till Wagah border.

Travelling along with it will be the body of Ara Jahan, 65, of Karachi, who was identified by her sister and brother yesterday. She had come to invite the two, based in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, to her daughter’s wedding. Till the filing of this report, of the 67 bodies kept in the Panipat Civil Hospital mortuary, 24 had been identified. Of these, 19 bodies were of Pakistani nationals and the rest of Indians. Eighteen bodies have been handed over to relatives after identification.

However, nine people who arrived from Pakistan in the morning today left for Delhi without being able to identify anyone. Abdul Rafique, from Aligarh, was among those desperately looking for anything to identify his sister-in-law and her two children. “Finally I identified three bodies through a locket which has Allah inscribed on it,” he said.

Late on Wednesday night, a fresh batch of eight people arrived to do the rounds of the caskets. “We have completed the process of embalming all the bodies, which will last three more days,’’ Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Agarwal said.