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| Police exhumes body for DNA examination | | | Srinagar, March10
Police today exhumed the remains of a body, believed to be that of a former police constable, Neelofar Jan, from a graveyard in Dalgate area of Srinagar and collected tissue samples for DNA examination from the decomposed skeletal remains to ascertain the identity of the body.
A team comprising sleuths of Special Investigation Team probing fake encounters that surfaced last month and doctors plus the forensic experts from Chandigrah were present when the grave was opened and the skeleton dug out after removing five feet of earth at the graveyard.
In the middle of a canvas enclosure raised for the exhumation, as shovel after shovel of earth was removed to reach to the skeletal remains of the body, Neelofar's mother who was present at the occasion started getting bouts of convulsions. "What have they done to my daughter," she screamed raising her hands in desperation.
The experts, meanwhile, lifted the skeleton out of the grave and placed it on a trolley to collect samples from the bones. Neelofar's mother could hardly glance at the remains while mother inside her pushed her again and again .
"Let me see at least what has remained of her," she told an accomplice while struggling to stand on her feet.
The body buried here was fished out of Chuntkul Nallah packed in sack in March 2006 and was decomposed beyond recognition. Police had at that time said that the body must have remained in water for at lest 20 days before being fished out after local residents spotted it.
However, suspicion rose when Neelofar's husband saw a photograph of the body at Zainakadal Police Station in Srinagar and claimed that the body was that of his wife who had gone missing since 28th February. In this connection, the family had already filed a missing report in Police Station Bemina. Though the family had been pleading the exhumation of the body from the graveyard in Dalgate ever since Neelofar's husband saw the photograph, no heed was paid to their requests till the fake encounter case surfaced in Srinagar and the J&K Police's Special Investigation Team started probing the allegations.
Posted in Badamibagh cantonment area in Srinagar, Neelofar was working as a constable in the Women's Battalion of the J&K Police. Eyewitnesses said that the body fished out at Dalgate was rotting and one could hardly tell that the body was that of a Kashmiri woman.
"We thought she is a labourer that had come to work here from some other state and must have been killed by her fellows," said a Shop-owner in Badyari, the spot in Dalgate where the body was spotted. "You could tell nothing from the face. When the bag was opened and the face revealed, it was a horrifying sight," he added.
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