British families grieving after the Air India disaster have discovered that the remains of their loved ones have been wrongly identified before repatriation, according to an aviation lawyer representing them.

Relatives of one victim had to abandon funeral plans after being informed that their coffin contained the body of an unknown passenger.

In another case, the “commingled” remains of more than one person killed in the crash were mistakenly placed in the same casket and had to be separated before the interment could go ahead, the Daily Mail reported.

The news came before the start of a two-day state visit to London by India’s prime minister on Wednesday. Narendra Modi will meet his British counterpart, Keir Starmer, to sign a landmark free trade agreement between India and the UK.

The mistakes emerged when the Inner West London coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox sought to verify the repatriated Britons’ identities by matching their DNA with samples provided by the families, the Mail reported.