Thursday, January 12 2006 14:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court today (Jan 12,2006)gave permission to the CBI to give the skeletal remains of post-Godhra riot victims of the Lunawada mass grave site to Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Dignostics (CDFD) instead of Red Hill Laboratory (both located in Andhra Pradesh).

Justice C K Buch passed the orders today in connection with a petition filed by the CBI seeking to conduct the crucial DNA tests of the skeletal remains at the laboratory.

The court also said that once the tests were conducted copies of the results should be given to it and also the State Government.

The CBI said that it had collected nine boxes of skeletal remains of the riot victims from the mass grave site and the tenth box contained blood samples of kin of victims.

These blood samples would also be tested, CBI said.

The court also observed that as the boxes containing samples were sealed and yet to be sent to the DNA labs for testing, they could not (not) be handed over to relatives.

The High Court had on December 29 asked the CBI and Central Forensic experts from AIIMS to oversee the digging of bodies from the grave after the matter came into the open due to media reports.

However, the CBI moved a petition before the High Court after completing the exhuming of 20 bodies and collecting the DNA samples of 55 people for matching seeking a fresh direction from the Court that the samples be sent to CDFD instead of Red Hill Laboratory.