The bodies of 72 students killed in the security forces operation against Lal Masjid militants were temporarily buried in the first phase here at the H-11 graveyard on Thursday. The burial process, which started on Wednesday night, was completed on Thursday afternoon.Islamabad Chief Commissioner Khalid Pervez told Daily Times that finger prints and photographs of the students, buried in H-11 graveyard had been taken, which would help in identification and handing the bodies over to their heirs on claim.
Pervez said that samples of bodies for DNA tests had also been taken. He said that the coffins and graves had been marked with numbers to facilitate the identification.
Pervez said that there might be six girl students among those buried in H-11 graveyard. A Capital Development Authority (CDA) official said that most of the coffins were carrying the bodies of students under 18. He said that the bodies were being moved to the graveyard after postmortem at various hospitals of the city.
To a question the CDA official said that he was unable to tell the number of girl students as the bodies were in the coffins. However, he said that most of the bodies were beyond recognition. He said that more bodies would be brought to this graveyard. He showed eight more graves, which were being dug out, as more bodies were expected. He said that sizes of graves showed that they were meant for burial of young students.
He said that over 80 more slabs had been brought to cover the graves being dug out, which indicated that a number of more bodies were likely to be brought there. “It is expected that the second phase of burial would start Thursday night,” he said. The Daily Times has learnt that some of the coffins were seemingly carrying more that one body. A senior official of the CDA said those killed in the operation would be buried in the same graveyard, as the other graveyards were not having the capacity for more graves.
Muhammad Khan, who was searching for his brother (14-year-old student at Lal Masjid), said that the government was not showing the bodies to families of the students.