FAZAL SHER

ISLAMABAD: The dead bodies of 48 victims of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crash were shifted to Islamabad on Thursday for their identification through DNA test.

A senior official of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital said that 48 bodies of PIA plane crash victims had been shifted to PIMS. He said it would take seven to eight days to identify dead bodies through DNA test.

The PIA plane PK-661 carrying 48 people en route from Chitral to Islamabad crashed into the mountains near Havelian, district Abbottabad, Wednesday afternoon, after one of its two engines stopped working.

Three army helicopters shifted the dead bodies from Abbottabad to Jinnah Sports Complex, Islamabad, from where the dead bodies were shifted to PIMS through ambulances.

The official said the hospital had started collection of DNA samples of the victim families and so far the hospital has collected DNA samples of 28 family members of the deceased.

"So far, the dead bodies of five victims have been identified, of which one was identified through finger prints verification and four bodies through other evidences," he said.

The five identified dead persons included Farhad Aziz, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Takbeer, Sami Ullah and Ahsan Ghaffar. A medical board had been formed for handing over the bodies to the grieved families, he said.

He further said that medial board had handed over five dead bodies to the heirs and the authorities had started shifting of the remaining dead bodies to a cold storage in Rawat.

The district administration has set up facilitation desk for the victim families at PIMS.

The dead included religious scholar and face of former music band Junaid Jamshed and his wife, Chitral's deputy commissioner Osama Ahmad Warraich, his wife and an infant daughter, and three foreigners.

Shahzada Farhad Aziz, a member of Chitral's Royal family, and his daughter, three employees of the Aga Khan Foundation and an official of the Hashoo Foundation were also among the dead.

Meanwhile, funeral prayer in absentia of DC Chitral Osama Ahmad Waraich, who lost his life in the PIA plane crash.