Jamsheer Ali, 32, has not been able to open the folder containing images of his 14-day-old baby Adam Sayan. He had clicked many on his mobile phone, but he couldn't bring himself to look at those even once. He is the father of the youngest victim of Wayanad landslide. With the state government finally declaring 32 missing persons dead, a group of people know, much against their will, it's time to move on.

The list shows his name as a close relative of two dead people: Adam Sayan and Suhaina, his wife. "I hadn't even held him in my arms as much as I wished. I had received his birth certificate, now I am told I got to collect his death certificate as part of the procedure. A ceremony was at my wife's house a day before the landslide. We were all so happy," he said. Jamsheer now runs a shop at Meppadi with the support of people who raised money for him.

After the function, he took his eldest daughter Ayesha to his house in the evening and both of them survived. "She is all I have now," he said. Jamsheer recounted that Suhaina had made plans. "Once she returned to our house, she wanted to go to some places and make offerings. We had wished and prayed to have Adam so much," he said.

Every single day after the fateful night was a struggle for the relatives. They would try to turn away from anything that would make them break down. It wasn't easy.

Somali Panda, sister of Dr Swadhen Panda from Odisha who went missing in the landslide, just couldn't summon courage to unlock her brother's car that was parked in front of her residence all these months. "I wanted to open it, maintain it and keep it cleaned, but I couldn't. Last week we came to know about the government's declaration. My parents were expecting the worst, but somewhere they hoped for a miracle. We strongly hoped that there would be a match for his DNA sample," said Somali. "As we speak, I am sitting in his car; there is no other option but to get on with it, right," she said.

When the government began identification of missing persons, the number was over 100. DNA profiling of samples collected from the mortal remains of landslide victims brought down the number to 46. Several of the samples were matched at the Regional Forensic Science Lab (FSL), Kannur. As a last resort,  all the material objects of evidence available with the FSL in respect of dead bodies and body parts and blood samples of those related to the missing persons were sent to the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB). As many as 208 post-mortem samples and 39 blood samples were transferred. Using the advanced technology, the RGCB could get matches for a few missing people. A government official said it was also known that some of the people would remain unidentified and at some point a call had to be taken to declare them dead. "We used the best available resources and did everything we can to give closure to their relatives," an official with the revenue department said.

For some of the relatives, the DNA match was even heart-breaking. Sanooja P had lost 11 members of her family in the landslide.  Her youngest brother, Salman Faris, is included in the list of missing people declared dead. The authorities found a match for her father Basheer. "A body part had matched, we didn't receive it back for burial. I lost my brother and mother also. My mother was mistaken for another woman and buried. We realised it only later. It is not just about grief sometimes, I don't know how to put it. All I can do is pray for them, you never move on; you can only try," said Sanooja.