Whose limbs are these?

Two left legs and left hands recovered from blast sites are yet to be linked to any of the victims; two muscle tissue samples have met the same fate, indicating that the death toll could rise further

Even as the death toll in last week's triple blasts climbed to 20 yesterday, authorities at JJ Hospital were still struggling to piece together the jigsaw of the six body parts two left hands, two left legs and two muscle tissue samples which have been lying in cold storage in the hospital's morgue since the blasts.

Following established procedure, forensic experts at the hospital have sent the samples from the body of each deceased for DNA examination to the Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina. Samples of the six body parts have similarly been sent to be matched with the DNA of the deceased.

"As these parts were not found in close proximity of any dead body, we could not assume that they belong to any particular deceased. Thus, we have to match the DNA samples of the deceased whose limbs were missing with those of the body parts," said a senior forensic doctor from JJ hospital.

Another forensic expert pointed out that the parts could well belong to the injured who were taken to hospitals without limbs. "In this case, the DNA of the injured will also have to be matched with those of the body parts," he said.

The third, more disturbing, possibility is that the parts belong to dead people whose bodies were charred or cut up beyond recognition, whose families haven't informed the authorities about their presence at the blast sites. This would mean that the death toll could rise further.

"The hospital's control room has been getting calls from people who ask us about particular people from Rajsthan, Bengal and other states, who are neither admitted to any hospitals nor figure in the list of the dead.
u00a0
So, there is a possibility of there being another set of victims who must have been hit in such a way that only these remains have reached the hospital," said a senior doctor from JJ.

Possibilities
Of the people whose post-mortems were conducted at JJ Hospital, the body parts of only two were missing. Only the head and shoulder of 35-year-old Kishan Shivram Mandal were brought to the hospital and the body of Guman Singh Rathod (35) had all four limbs missing.

"The DNA reports of these two deceased will be matched with the limbs and the tissues that we have received from the blast site in Zaveri Bazaar first. Only after that will the DNA be matched with those of living victims, if the police ask us to do so," said the senior doctor.

"Usually, the report for a DNA exam takes at least six months to arrive. In these cases, however, they should arrive in a maximum of a month," said a an expert from FSL, Kalina.

Toll
On the night of the blasts, 17 dead bodies were taken to various hospitals and three others, Avinash Tamka (24), Baburao Das (42) and Avinash Ashok Bate (30), who were recuperating at Bombay, Saifee and JJ hospitals respectively, subsequently succumbed to their injuries. Bate died yesterday.

Doctors have conducted around 100 X-rays along with extensive photography of each post mortem to build up strong evidence.