‘We still feel he’s abroad’ : For kin of last identified passenger victim, grief lingers at the door

For a year since the devastating crash of Air India flight in Ahmedabad, the Khimani family of Dahinsara village in Gujarat’s Kutch still struggles to speak of 35-year-old Anil Khimani in the past tense — grief has not arrived as a single moment of acceptance, but as a slow pain carried through unfinished conversations, unanswered calls and the unbearable silence left behind by a man who had stepped out of home believing he would return with better prospects for his family.

What remains, instead, are fragments — Anil’s daughters growing up without him, wife making attempts to reduce financial dependence, parents staring at the doorway a little too long, a brother replaying old conversations wondering whether one different decision could have changed everything. In the Khimani household, the silence after June 12 still refuses to die down.

“It still feels he’s settled abroad, somehow,” says his elder brother, Rakesh Khimani, his voice faltering between pauses. “Even today, sometimes it feels as though he may call or just barge through the gate into the courtyard…”

Anil was among the 260 persons — 241 persons on board and 19 on the ground – killed when Air India flight AI-171 crashed into a medical hostel complex in Ahmedabad’s Meghaninagar area shortly after take off for London Gatwick last year. One passenger survived.

While families of many other victims had received the mortal remains of their departed loved ones within days, the Khimanis had waited in agony for weeks. Anil’s remains were so badly charred that forensic experts struggled to establish a DNA match. He became the last passenger victim to be identified on the occasion of Ashadi Beej — the Kutchi New Year — on June 27, 2025. Just a day before, losing hope and in search of a closure, the family had performed a symbolic funeral in Dahinsara, using an effigy wrapped in his clothes as advised by priests of the Swaminarayan sect, which the family is a part of.

11/06/2026 Aditi Raja/Indian Express

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Categories: Air India Jun 2026, Safety Jun 2026