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Mass burial for charred victims
23/02/2007 10:36 - (SA)
New Delhi - Indian authorities have arranged a mass funeral on Saturday for 30 rapidly decomposing bodies of victims of the firebombing of a train headed to Pakistan, an official said on Friday.
The blasts on the cross-border "Friendship Express" train at midnight on Sunday killed 68 people, mostly Muslims returning home, and left some so badly charred there is little hope that families can claim them for a personal burial.
"They are highly mutilated and badly charred. They are in a terrible shape," Panipat deputy commissioner Rajiv Ranjan said.
He said they were rapidly rotting in a makeshift mortuary without refrigeration at the town hospital and were a health hazard. The regular mortuary can only hold up to 10 bodies.
"The people who come for identification cannot recognise anyone," he added.
The government has agreed to let the burial proceed on Saturday afternoon at Mehrana village, close to the hospital at Panipat, north of New Delhi.
The bodies - presumed to be Muslims, as Hindus are cremated - will be buried in individually marked graves according to religious rites presided over by a local Islamic law board, Ranjan said.
Identifying the dead
Family members who have not been able to find their loved ones may attend, he added.
Families still hoping to examine the remains for some clue of their missing relatives must reach the town before morning.
"My message is that whoever has taken visa (to come from Pakistan) had better reach (here) tonight to make their identification," said Ranjan.
In New Delhi, Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna said on Thursday all efforts were being made to identify the dead and contact relatives.
Sarna said that so far "33 of the 68 dead have been identified. 27 of these are Pakistani nationals of whom 21 bodies have now been handed over" to relatives.
Two Pakistani survivors who were being treated in the Indian capital were taken to Panipat late on Thursday to identify the remains of their children.
- AFP
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