Sibi train carnage: Relatives to wait three months for DNA verification
At least 17 people — including a woman and five children — were killed and nearly four dozen wounded when a passenger train was bombed at Sibi railway station on Tuesday. PHOTO: ONLINE
At the Provincial Sandeman Hospital (PSH) in the provincial capital, pockets of mourners comforted each other mere feet away from the morgue.
They had just been informed that the bodies of their loved ones – the ill-fated passengers of the Rawalpindi-bound Sibi train that was attacked on Tuesday – could not be identified.
They were “charred beyond recognition”. The phrase, though often used by hospital officials in cases where a deadly fire has raged long enough to delay rescue operations, did not quite sink in.
“We were told to contact the hospital after two or three days,” said a fraught Mahesh Kumar. Mahesh is the nephew of Bihari Lal, who along with eight family members died of severe burns in the deadly bombing that claimed 17 lives.
Mahesh’s departed family members, blackened and faceless, were among the 12 bodies brought to Quetta.
“Eight people of our family have died but we are yet to receive them as all the bodies are charred beyond recognition,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2014.