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National News
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Decision on mass burial for blast victims likely today
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Posted online: Friday, February 23, 2007 at 2:37:57 PM
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With the charred bodies of the victims of the twin blasts on the India-Pakistan peace train decomposing fast, a decision on giving them a mass burial is likely to be taken Friday.
The Panipat district administration Thursday sent a communication to the Haryana government seeking approval for mass burial of the remaining bodies as they were getting decomposed despite the use of chemicals to preserve them.
Only 32 of the 66 victims, whose bodies are kept at the civil hospital premises here, have been identified so far and there is little chance that the others will be identified at all because they are badly charred.
Most of the 32, including 26 Pakistanis, have been taken away by relatives to their native places in India and Pakistan. Some of the Pakistani nationals were being buried by relatives in India itself.
Twelve bodies were Thursday allowed to be carried through the Wagah joint border checkpost between India and Pakistan, 30 km ahead of the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
The twin blasts Sunday night enflamed two bogies of the Samjhauta Attari special train near Diwana village, 10 km from here, leaving 68 Pakistan-bound passengers dead and nearly 50 injured.
Sources in the district administration told IANS Friday that they were waiting for directions from the state government and the central ministry of external affairs (MEA) regarding the disposal of the bodies.
Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Aggarwal said that all methods, like injecting chemicals, had failed to stop the decomposition of the bodies. The bodies are lying inside the civil hospital premises here since Monday morning in wooden coffins.
"A very foul smell has started emanating from the bodies," a doctor at the hospital said.
District officials here have even identified two sites for mass burial of the remaining bodies. "This would be done only after clearance from the MEA and the state government," Aggarwal said.
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