Indian American doc's name back to victims list

The name of an Indian American doctor missing since the day before the 9/11 attacks in New York, has been restored to the casualties list after an appeals court decided that there was no other plausible explanation for her disappearance.

The city medical examiner's office said on Thursday that Sneha Anne Philip, 31, was among 2,751 victims killed at the World Trade Centre Sep 11, 2001.

Her name was removed from the list in 2004 by officials who said they couldn't definitively link her to the site because she did not work there and was not seen there since a day before the attacks.

Philip's family went to court and Jan 31 the state Supreme Court's appellate division determined that she had died at the trade towers and ordered that her name be restored to the list. The medical examiner cited the court ruling in a release.

Philip, a resident physician at a Staten Island hospital, was last seen on a videotape buying shoes and lingerie at a department store opposite the trade centre a day before the planes hit in the biggest terrorist strike ever.

Investigators were initially working on the theory that she could have been a victim of another crime or had disappeared on her own to escape troubles with marriage and alcohol.

Her family believed she had most likely attended a party held by the city's South Asian community in a hotel in the trade centre complex Sep 10 and being a doctor, died while helping the wounded near the towers before they collapsed.

"The evidence shows it to be highly probable that she died that morning and at that site, whereas only the rankest speculation leads to any other conclusion," the court wrote.