Darshan, 7, survived the accident in which a school bus was hit by a train
Informed that their young son was among the 14 children who had died after a train hit their school bus, Darshan Goud's parents were handed his body in Telangana.
Swamy Goud and his wife then cremated their boy.
Today, however, on their son's seventh birthday, they were informed that their son is alive and had named his father after recovering consciousness at a local hospital.
"I was told my son had died and after that I went to different hospitals searching for my son. I reached a private hospital and saw some bodies of school children.I fainted and could not recognise a body that was shown to me as the face of the body was disfigured. Assuming that it was my son's body, I took it and performed the last rites," Mr Goud said.
"Swamy Goud could not make out his son's body and took another instead. The mistake has been rectified now," Telangana Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao told reporters.
The body that Mr Goud claimed and cremated belonged to another family whose son and daughter were both killed in the accident that took place at an unmanned rail crossing in the Medak district of the state, 70 kms from the capital of Hyderabad.
That family thought that their daughter had died in the accident, but that their son was being treated for injuries in hospital. It is now grappling with a new unspeakable instalment of tragedy.