Samples collected after exhumation of Shopian victims

The bodies of the two south Kashmir women who were raped and murdered in Shopian town earlier this year were exhumed on Monday to gather forensic evidence, an official said.

The bodies of the two south Kashmir women who were raped and murdered in Shopian town earlier this year were exhumed on Monday to gather forensic evidence, an official said.

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Forensic experts from New Delhi who arrived in Srinagar on Sunday proceeded to south Kashmir's Shopian town early on Monday for the exhumation.

The graveyard where the victims had been buried was cordoned off by security forces before the exhumation process was started.

Accompanied by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team headed by a deputy inspector general, a local magistrate, district police chief, relatives of the victims and some elders of the town, the experts exhumed the bodies of Nilofar Jan, 22, and her sister-in-law Asiya Jan, 17, both of whom were found dead by the side of a stream in Shopian town on May 30.

The bodies were again buried in the graveyard after the forensic experts took samples.

Many local residents gathered around the graveyard to watch the exhumation process. The incident had created outrage in Shopian and across Kashmir.

The investigations were handed over to the CBI after the state government approached it earlier this month.

In a startling development, the gynaecologist who had conducted autopsies on the bodies of the victims had confessed on Sunday that she did not take the vaginal swabs from the victims, but had instead sent slides which she had taken from two of her patients in the Pulwama hospital.

The investigation was handed over to the CBI after the special investigating team (SIT) set up by the state government failed to crack the case.