Bodies of Shopian rape and murder victims exhumed

A special CBI forensic team today exhumed the bodies of the two women allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian, nearly four months after the incident that sparked massive protests in the Kashmir Valley.

A special CBI forensic team on Monday exhumed the bodies of the two women allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian, nearly four months after the incident that sparked massive protests in the Kashmir Valley.

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The team, which comprised senior doctors of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, began the process of exhuming the bodies at 7 am 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.