DNA test of exhumed body awaited

“We will be asking them to approach the family in only one country” the DGP clarified, indicating that the J&K police had almost zeroed in on identifying the body but wanted to keep it under wraps until the DNA testing was done.“If the results of the DNA confirms the identity of one of the hostages, then we can go about trying to locate the others,” the DGP said. He added that the height, age and colour of hair of the body exhumed from Akingam on September 27 did match the description of one particular hostage, but said he did not want to name him at this stage.

Intelligence sources in New Delhi, however, indicated that the J&K police suspected the exhumed body was that of the British hostage, Paul Wells. They said that some body and blood samples from the body had been taken by a team of experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Srinagar.

After being dug out from the village graveyard in Akingam, the body has been preserved in the police hospital in Srinagar. The CFSL team has since returned to New Delhi and is expected to send the samples for testing to a laboratory either in Hyderabad or Calcutta.

Giving the sequence of events which led to the body being exhumed the DGP said, contrary to press reports the police had acted on specific information given by two trusted informants a fortnight ago. The persons identifying the grave, he said, were not captured militants, but informants, whose identity was being kept a secret.

Asked whether in the event of a breakthrough, the police would be rewarding these informants the DGP said, “we always reward our informants.” He added that even when the digging operation was being conducted, the police was aware that the body of a militant named Zia-ud-din had also been buried in the same area.