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The wait for the grieving family of Kerala nurse Renjitha Gopakumar, who was one of the passengers on the Air India flight AI 171 which crashed soon after takeoff from the Ahmedabad airport on June 12, is over as her body was identified, on Monday, June 23, by the DNA sample matching. Her mortal remains will be brought back to her home on Tuesday, June 24.
Soon after the tragedy took place and the news spread that Renjitha was on board, her brother Ratheesh Gopakumar reached Ahmedabad on June 13 and has been there since then to track her mortal remains. His sample was taken, but it failed to match, and then the sample of her mother was taken.
It was on Monday that the news came that her mother’s sample had matched, and Ratheesh Gopakumar is now waiting to collect the body, which will be flown from Ahmadabad on Tuesday morning to Thiruvananthapuram.
Meanwhile, arrangements are now being made at the school where Renjitha studied near Pathanamthitta, as the people in her hometown have decided to keep the body for the public to pay their last respects. In the late afternoon, it would be taken to her home from the school, and soon thereafter, it would be consigned to flames.
She has been employed in London for less than a year, and had reached her home town for a brief holiday, early this month. Prior to working in London, she was in the Middle East. She had taken a long leave from the government health service and had come to see when she could rejoin it.
Moreover, she was building her new home and was planning to have the housewarming function on June 28. Tragically, it will be her remains that will be kept in her partially completed new home for the last time. Renjitha has two young children who were studying here after she moved to London last year.