MUMBAI: Mumbai police will conduct DNA tests to identify the 30 dead bodies, suspected to be that of the crew members of the P305 barge that sank off the Mumbai coast amid cyclone Tauktae. According to sources, the Mumbai police are struggling to establish the identity of the victims, and therefore, sought DNA tests.
A Mumbai police spokesperson said the Navy has so far recovered 61 bodies from the Arabian Sea and handed them over to the city police.
Barge P-305, which housed personnel engaged in the maintenance work of an offshore oil drilling platform of the state-run oil and gas major ONGC, sank on Monday evening off the Mumbai coast. The barge had gone adrift before sinking.
“Police have handed over the bodies of 28 victims to their families after post-mortem. However, the identity of 30 victims is yet to be established. While some bodies are decomposed, some others have deep injuries and therefore they are beyond recognition,” the official said.
Accordingly, the blood samples of the deceased and their immediate relatives are being collected and sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina in Santacruz here, he said.
“After the samples are matched, the bodies will be handed over to the respective family members,” he said, adding that the DNA sampling will be finished in three days.
Navy deploys diving teams to look for bodies
Mumbai: With no trace of nine personnel from barge P305 and 11 from tugboat Varaprada six days after Cyclone Tauktae fury rendered the vessels adrift, the Navy on Saturday undertook an underwater search for the wreckage of the two vessels.
The death toll on P305 rose to 66 with the recovery of six more bodies during the day, a Navy spokesperson said.