Rajesh patel, who was among the first people involved in the rescue work after the plane crash in ahmedabad on june 12, returned to the spot immediately after leaving the bodies and many injured to the ambulance and started searching in the smoldering debris. 57-year-old Rajesh patel said that he collected about 70 tolas of gold jewellery, Rs 50,000 and some US dollars from the site of the fatal plane crash and handed it over to the police. patel, who lives just 300 meters from the accident site, boarded an ambulance of a private hospital run by his relative in the Shahibaug area of the city when he heard a loud explosion and saw a fireball rising in the sky.
patel, who is in the construction business, said, "On getting information about the plane crash in the hostel premises of BJ Medical College, I reached there hoping to save as many people as possible. However, we could not reach close to the spot for the first 15 to 20 minutes. After the fire was brought under control, we started the rescue operation.''
Started saving people's belongings
patel and other volunteers did not have any 'stretcher', so they used old sarees, sheets and sacks to carry the dead bodies and injured to the ambulance. After the rescue operation was completed, patel started saving the luggage and other material of the people on board the air india plane.
patel said, "From 10 to 15 burnt and scattered handbags, we recovered 70 tola gold jewellery, eight to 10 silver items, some passports, a copy of Bhagavad Gita, 50 thousand rupees in cash and 20 dollars. We handed them over to a police officer who was monitoring the rescue operation.''
Valuables will be returned to the families of the passengers
According to Inspector DB Basia of Meghni nagar police station, one of his teams has been assigned the task of preparing a detailed list of every valuable item and goods recovered from the accident site. Basia said, "Once the list is prepared, we will coordinate with air india and after verification, we will start the process of handing over the valuables and other material to the families of the passengers. As of now, we do not have any fixed number of items or their value."
Gujarat minister of State for home Harsh Sanghvi had announced on june 16 that every item found from the plane wreckage would be returned. The minister said, "Four to five tola gold jewellery recovered from the body of Veenaben Agheda was carefully traced and returned to her family. Its value was around Rs 4.5 lakh.".jpg)
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