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Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar
A four-member forensic team from two of India's premier diagnostics labs on Wednesday collected fresh DNA samples from the relatives of the victims of the carnage in Pathribal in March 2000, and also exhumed the remains of the victims for further probe.
Dr A K Sharma from DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics Lab, Calcutta, headed the four-member team of forensic experts.
Dr G V Rao of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (Hyderabad) also flew in on Wednesday morning to be a part of the team, after the Jammu and Kashmir government extended an invitation to the top DNA scientist.
In order to make the exercise foolproof, the entire forensic exercise was carried out in presence of the Inspector General of Police (Jammu) P L Gupta, District Magistrate Bashir Ahmed Runiyal and Senior Superintendent of Police (Anantnag) Ghulan Hassan Bhat.
The chief medical officer (Anantnag), Dr Mir Mohammad Youssuf, was also present when the bodies of the five persons, alleged to be 'foreign terrorists' responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chattisinghpora in March 2000, was exhumed.
Relatives of the five alleged terrorists accompanied the team and identified the graves, after which the team collected fresh DNA samples from the exhumed bodies.
The entire exercise was photographed by the administration.
The team left Srinagar for Calcutta on Wednesday afternoon to match the DNA samples.
Earlier, the media exposure of the fudging of the DNA samples of the relatives of the five alleged terrorists had forced the state government to suspend Dr Balbir Kaur, head of the forensic medicine department of the Government Medical College, Srinagar
Her deputy and five others, who had been assigned the duty of collecting sample from the relatives of the victims, were also suspended.
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