AHMEDABAD, 29 December 2005 — Police are conducting DNA tests to identify 19 bodies found when villagers in western India unearthed a mass grave where authorities buried victims of religious riots nearly four years ago.
The grave in Gujarat state’s Lunawada village was not a new find, as initial reports suggested, said state Police Chief A.K. Bhargava.
Authorities had dug the grave for 19 people killed in February 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots, Bhargava said.
Although villagers have never been told if their relatives were in the grave, Bhargava insisted the bodies had been “legally accounted for,” and said they had “been dug out to create a sensation.”
Another police official, J.K. Bhatt, said two Lunawada residents had been arrested for illegally digging up the site.
Human rights groups have accused the state government, led by the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party, of doing little to stop the violence. The Supreme Court has criticized the state’s lenient handling of Hindus accused of killing Muslims.
Residents of predominantly Muslim Lunawada said yesterday they dug up the grave to check if their relatives were there.
“My brother was killed in the riots. Police took away the body for post-mortem but never returned the body. He too may be buried in this grave,” said resident Sheikh Bhikubhai.
“We are collecting samples from the site for conducting DNA tests on the remains to ascertain the identity,” Bhargava said.
Gujarat was the scene of one of India’s most violent religious riots in recent years, sparked by an attack on a train car in which 60 Hindus were burned to death.
Hindu extremists blamed Muslims, and Hindu mobs killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. Many were buried in mass graves — some dug by killers, others by relatives.
At Lunawada, about 170 km southwest of the state capital, Ahmedabad, at least 40 people were killed during the riots, and nearly half were buried in the mass grave uncovered by the villagers, Bhargava said.
Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India news agency reported yesterday that India’s federal Central Bureau of Investigation — the country’s equivalent of the FBI — would conduct its own investigation of the grave.
