The mystery of 21 persons, massacred at Pandervada village, was unraveled on Tuesday as their kin exhumed mortal remains from a mass grave in Lunavada.
LUNAVADA: The mystery of 21 missing persons, massacred at Pandervada village during riots, was unraveled on Tuesday morning as their kin exhumed mortal remains from a mass grave in neighbouring Lunavada, after a four-year hunt.
The relatives of the victims were in a state of utter shock when they found clothes and other belongings of eight persons, which were dug out of a huge pit at 9 am. However, they had to leave the remains there and flee as police dubbed their move illegal and moved to arrest them.
The district and state authorities claimed that these bodies were buried by the local authorities after carrying out postmortem during the riot days as there were no claimants to the bodies.
Most of the missing people are believed to be from Daudi Vohra community, who had complained that many of their people were missing since the attacks carried out on them on March 2, 2002.
Authorities maintain that these were the people who were brought for treatment and postmortem from Pandervada who were later buried here. However, what has raised suspicion is the fact that the families of the 21 victims were not informed by the authorities at any point that their relatives were identified and buried.
DNA spoke to Salim Sayed, whose brother was among those buried in the grave. He had chanced upon the information on Monday night about the mass burial site from the local tribals, who had seen a hand peeping out from the surface of a mound. Along with some other members of the victims' families, he started to dig at the site and by afternoon they had found some mortal remains. Soon, skeletons after skeletons were dug out of the grave taking the tally to eight.
“I requested the police to intervene in the matter but I could not get any favourable response. Later Teesta Setalwad, a social worker also intervened and urged the Home Ministry for a CBI inquiry,” said Rais Khan, a local social activist.
District collector D H Brahmbhatt said, "It is premature to comment on anything about the recovery of dead bodies. We have advised people to stay away from the spot as it is illegal to dig out bodies without performing the legal formalities."
"They are nothing but unclaimed bodies buried in the government plot under the inspection of sanitary department of local municipality, irrespective of their religion as they could not be identified following the gruesome violence. We have already launched the investigation and are going ahead for forensic tests to reach to the conclusion," said district superintendent of police, J K Bhatt.
With inputs by Pranav Golvelkar
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