Pakistani girl among dead in Malegaon

MALEGAON: A 12-year-old Pakistani girl was among the 31 people killed in the bomb attacks in Malegaon.

The body of Sajida Bahanu Rizwan, a resident of Islamabad, was among five unclaimed bodies lying in a hospital here. It was handed over on Saturday to her mother, who was visiting relatives in Malegaon.

"The bodies of Hyatt Sheikh (50), a local, and Sajida Bahanu Rizwan, a Pakistani national, were handed over to their relatives and they were buried today," said Salim Chiaraksha, a social worker.

"Shab-e-barat falling on the holy day of Friday was an auspicious coincidence and Sajida and her mother had come all the way from Pakistan to visit relatives, but the blast took her life," he said.

Sajida's funeral was arranged by her mother, who escaped the blast, and her Malegaon-based uncle, Chiaraksha said.

Hyatt Sheikh's body was buried at the Bada Kabrastan cemetery, where two of Friday's four blasts occurred.

The authorities had sought proof of identity before handing over the bodies and this caused a delay in the funeral arrangements for the two, Chiaraksha said.

Three bodies have still not been claimed and are lying in a makeshift mortuary at the civil hospital.

"Twenty-four bodies were buried at the Bada Kabrastan while four were buried in the Ayesha Nagar graveyard," an official of Bada Kabrastan said.

The blasts here also injured nearly 300 people, a majority of them children.