A special committee comprising representatives from Asir’s police force, the local municipality and other relevant authorities was behind the operation.

Only remains and bones were found when 20 workers carried out the committee’s orders.

The special committee was formed after a number of people from the center complained to authorities about the suspicious nature of these recently formed graves.

The grand mufti gave the go-ahead to excavate them.

People from the center became suspicious after they found 21 new graves in less than one week. They also complained that some of the graves, which did not have tombstones, were not facing Makkah.

They suspected that the graves had been violated and illegal burials had taken place.

It was also feared that criminals had hidden their weapons and explosives in some of them.

They had the suspicion that someone had moved bodies from graves outside the area to this particular graveyard in order to use the emptied land for construction.

Authorities were urged to build fences around the graveyard in order to protect it from intruders and to keep records of the people buried there.