Saturday, June 11 2005 09:56 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: Gujarat police, which has received severe flak for its poor handling of post-Godhra riots and the manner of probe into several of the cases, now faces another problem with kin of victims of some cases denying permission on religious grounds to exhume bodies for DNA tests.

Two such cases are creating roadblocks for the Gujarat police that is working under directions of the Supreme Court after 2000 odd riot cases were ordered to be re-investigated by the Apex Court.

In both the cases, relatives of victims and religious heads have denied permission to police to exhume the bodies saying this would amount to sacrilege.

The issue cropped up in June when relatives of eight riot victims of a massacre case in Dahod district prevented the police from exhuming the bodies and said they would be allowed to do so only after consulting their religious head.

Police and forensic teams were kept at bay from the bodies, that includes those of three children, after they said they were not informed of police requiring to exhume bodies for re-investigation.

Mohammedbhai Tailor, a cleric from Dahod said exhuming bodies was completely against the religion and also questioned the purpose of such an investigation after three years.

"All the accused are walking free for all these years what form of justice can be given at such a late stage"? he said.

Mufti Imtiyaz, a cleric from Sarkhej area of Ahmedabad, told sources, "This (exhuming bodies) is completely against Islam. Even post-mortem should not be conducted unless it is an exceptional case. So, the question of giving permission to exhume a body does not even arise. However, senior religious heads can give permission if the reasons are genuine."

A member of the WAKF committee in the city said, "The committee has no say as such in such matters. But if asked for an opinion whether the religion or the law should be followed at such a crucial time...then the committee would say that the law should be followed."

All the eight persons were killed on March 1, 2002 while they were fleeing along with around 700 Muslims from their village with police protection.

Neither the relatives nor police are clear about the nature of their death as they could have died due to injuries sustained in the stone pelting by the mob and also due to suffocation as several of them were cramped into vehicles while fleeing, the case investigating officer said.

All the eight victims were buried in Dahod without even conducting post-mortem.

In the second case that allegedly involves a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Radhanpur town of Patan district, police is stuck in a similar situation.

Officials are awaiting clearance from relatives of two riot-victims to exhume the bodies to verify allegations that one of them died due to bullet injury sustained when the MLA opened fire at minorities.

The MLA Shankar Chaudary has been booked on charge of murder in this case but is yet to be arrested.

"How can we take stern action against him without any evidence? To gather the evidence, we need to exhume the bodies and the relatives are not permitting us," State director general of Police A K Bhargava said.

In an incident that had occurred on March 1, 2002 two persons of minority community were killed and post-mortem reports indicated that one was killed due to bullet injuries.

Police investigation also revealed that the MLA was part of the mob that attacked the minorities and also opened fire on them.