Mortal remains of third Indian killed in Sharjah oil tanker fire sent to India

The mortal remains of a third Indian national, who was killed in a fire onboard an oil tanker off the coast of Sharjah on January 29, have been sent to his home in India.

The Indian Consulate in Dubai on Wednesday tweeted that the mortal remains of Mohammad Abbas Ansari from Bihar was sent to his hometown in Patna after identifying him through a DNA test.

"Mortal remains of late Mr Mohammed Abbas Ansari who dies in the fire accident on vessel MT SAM on 29.01.2020, were sent to Patna, India yesterday. His body was identified by matching of his DNA with that of his son," the Indian mission tweeted.

Authorities had to resort to DNA tests to identify his mortal remains because the last two bodies that were retrieved a couple of days after the fire were charred beyond recognition, the Gulf News reported.

Ansari is the third Indian victim of the fire whose mortal remains have been repatriated.

The bodies of two other Indian nationals -- Shiva Naga Babu from Andhra Pradesh and Basudeb Haldar from West Bengal -- were repatriated on February 13 and 20 respectively.

Another Indian, Kolangi Thankavel from Tamil Nadu, remains missing till date.

DNA test would be conducted on the remaining body to verify if that is Thankavel as two people of two other nationalities had also reportedly gone missing after the fire.

We are in the process of getting the DNA test done on the remaining body. We have called Thankavel's family for this. His son will be brought to Dubai with the assistance of the consulate, Neeraj Agrawal, consul (Press, Information and Culture) told Gulf News on Wednesday.

They were aboard the Panamanian-flagged tanker, MT Sam, which was about 30 kilometres off the country's coast between Sharjah and Abu Musa Island in the Arabian Gulf, when a fire broke out on January 29.

The oil tanker had 12 crew members and 42 technicians on board when it caught fire, 21 miles off the coast of Sharjah.

They included Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Ethiopian and other undisclosed nationalities. All Indian victims were technicians who were hired by a third party company handling the dismantling of the ship while it was bound for India for scrappage when the fire took place.