Bilkis case: Forensic team can’t reach definite conclusion on skeletons

The report, submitted to the CBI a month ago, states, ‘‘No definite conclusion could be drawn except the gender of the unknown bodies… due to contamination or from degradation due to long period of burial or compound heterozygosity.’’

Those who buried the bodies had thrown in as much as 60 kg of salt in the grave. The AIIMS team has stated: ‘‘Salt being used to alter the rate of decomposition of the bodies cannot be ruled out.’’

Of the 14 missing relatives of Bilkis Rasool, post-mortems on seven bodies were conducted in Gujarat. The forensic team has concluded the ages and gender of those seven victims have matched. The bone samples recovered from Dahod’s riverine grave were reconstructed into five bodies, two were identified as male and three female. The unidentified bodies, the report states, belonged to victims of the 16-19 age group, the age of the fleeing victims, who were caught by a mob and killed.

Bilkis Rasool, who was then five months pregnant, too, was raped and assaulted, given up for dead, but survived.

The forensic report has since been sent by the CBI to the court in Mumbai where 20 persons are facing trial in the gangrape case.

The plight of Bilkis Rasool was first highlighted by The Indian Express. While the Gujarat police had closed the case, it was re-opened for investigation on orders of the Supreme Court.

As the DNA tests on the 108 bones and bone fragments and 18 pieces of clothing, recovered from Dahod on February 1 proceeded, special equipment was imported by the forensic team and British experts were consulted in one of the most challenging forensic tests ever undertaken in India.