Bodies of Shopian rape and murder victims exhumed

Shopian (Jammu and Kashmir), Sep 28 (PTI) A special
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) forensic team Monday
exhumed the bodies of the two women allegedly raped and
murdered in Shopian (in India's northernmost state of Jammu
and Kashmir), nearly four months after the incident that
sparked massive protests in the Kashmir Valley.

The team, which comprised senior doctors of All India
Institute of Medical Sciences, began the process of exhuming
the bodies at 7 AM IST after the necessary approval of the
family of the victims -- 22-year-old Neelofar and her
17-year-old sister-in-law Aasiya -- was obtained.

The village, about 51 km from Srinagar and famous for
Ambri apple, was agog with activity since midnight with
police erecting screens around the graveyard and para-military
forces setting up barricades that kept the general public and
media away.

The team had brought some modern equipment that would
help determine anti-mortem and post-mortem injuries on the
bodies, officials said.

Bodies of Neelofar and her sister-in-law Asiya were
recovered from a stream on May 30 after they went missing
in town the previous evening.

Their deaths had led to 47 days of protests in this
town with locals alleging that security personnel were
responsible for the crime.

Ahead of the exhumation, a doctor, who was part of the
second post-mortem team from neighbouring Pulwama district
hospital and had prepared the vaginal slides of the victims,
had told CBI that no samples from the duo had ever been taken.

The doctor broke down during questioning and narrated
the entire sequence of events to the CBI officials, official
sources said, adding she claimed that the samples were taken
from gloves used in the gynaecological ward of the district
hospital and the slides prepared.
The CBI took over the investigation into the case on
September 17 and a team headed by Deputy Inspector General
Satish Golcha has been camping here since then.

The agency's Special Director S C Sinha had also
visited the village recently and taken stock of the situation.

It had come to light last month that the vaginal swabs
of the two victims sent to Central Forensic and Scientific
Laboratory did not match with that of Neelofar and Aasiya.
Ahead of the CBI investigations, the state Government
had appointed one-man commission headed by Justice (retd)
Muzzafar Jan which among other things had recommended a
detailed questioning of the relatives of the victims including
Neelofar's husband Shakeel Ahnger and her brother Zirar Shah.
PTI SKL