HYDERABAD: The city-based Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), which has completed DNA profiling of the mortal remains of around 550 victims sent to it by the government of Uttarakhand, said on Monday that after the preliminary analysis of the results obtained so far, it was able to identify the bodies of 20 victims. Several thousand individuals from across the country have been reported missing and are believed to have died after the tragic flash floods and landslides that shook the hills in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in June 2013.
Explaining why the processes of DNA testing for identification took so long, CDFD director J Gowrishankar said, “There are two reasons why it took so long. One is the lack of manpower and the second is because the bone samples were in huge number. The government too had great difficulty in locating and recovering bodies from remote areas.”
The government of Uttarakhand had sent the mortal remains to CDFD and also the blood samples of around 200 claimant relatives of the individuals reported missing. “The blood samples sent is again a very small fraction of the total that needs to be done since identification by DNA testing requires the matching of DNA profiles of victims with their relatives,” he explained.
He said that CDFD would shortly be sending an identification report to the Uttarakhand government and that the number of victims for whom DNA testing had been done was only a small fraction of the number of individuals missing.
“The Uttarakhand government and the CDFD now seek the co-operation of all relatives, preferably a parent or child, of the missing individuals to have their blood samples collected for DNA testing and matching with the victim DNA profiles. An advertisement will be issued for this purpose shortly. The relatives will be requested to contact Uttarakhand government who will then send them instructions and materials for collection of blood samples and sending it back to Uttarakhand officials. The samples will then be forwarded by Uttarakhand government to CDFD .