Samples collected from the bodies of Shopian victims

SHOPIAN (J-K): A special CBI forensic team today collected samples from the bodies of the two women allegedly raped and murdered here after exhuming them nearly four months since the occurrence of the incident, that sparked massive protests in the Kashmir Valley.

The team, which comprised senior doctors of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, collected number of samples from the bodies in a process that started at 7 in the morning after obtaining necessary approval of the family of the victims -- 22-year-old Neelofar and her 17-year-old sister-in-law Aasiya-- and continued for nine long hours.

The village, about 51 km from Srinagar and famous for Ambri apples, was agog with activity since midnight with police erecting screens around the graveyard and para-military forces setting up barricades that kept the general public and media away.

The team had brought some modern equipment that would help determine ante-mortem and post-mortem injuries on the bodies, officials said.

Bodies of Neelofar and Asiya were recovered from a stream on May 30 after they went missing in town the previous evening.

Their deaths had led to 47 days of protests in the town with locals alleging that security personnel were responsible for the crime.