CBI to exhume bodies of Shopian victims

The bodies of the two women raped and murdered in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on May 30 would be exhumed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that has taken over the probe from the local police, official sources here said on Friday.

The CBI had approached the district and sessions judge at Shopian for permission to exhume the bodies and to record the statements of the victims' relatives agreeing to do so.

Senior officials of the CBI had already spoken to Shakeel Ahmad, whose sister Asiya January 17 and wife Nilofar January 22 were found dead by the side of a stream outside Shopian town on May 30.

"The CBI officials have also spoken to Moulvi Abdul Hai, the father of Nilofar. The two relatives of the victims have agreed to exhume the bodies in order to collect evidence so that the guilty are brought to justice," an official said on condition of anonymity.

"The exhumation is likely to take place on Sunday," he added.

Four police officers - then district police chief, a deputy superintendent of police, an inspector and a sub-inspector - were suspended and later arrested for alleged destruction of evidence in the case.