4 Jul 2009, 1334 hrs IST

SRINAGAR, India: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court today ordered the state police to exhume the bodies of two women raped and murdered allegedly by security forces in Shopian.

The High Court also issued instructions that no one, including CRPF and police personnel, can leave Shopian without special permission.

The court order came a day after it asked the state government's special investigation team (SIT) to find out who all civilians, police and paramilitary forces were present within 1,000 meters of the spot from where the bodies of the two women were recovered on May 28 (the day of the alleged rape and murder). The HC also issued orders to carry out a narco-analysis test on the two witnesses who claimed that they had heard the women's cries.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Barin Gosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir had issued the orders while hearing a case PIL by the Kashmir Bar Association.

Justice Gosh ordered the SIT to prepare the list in order to find a DNA match for the semen obtained from the vaginal swabs of the two victims.

The rape and murder of Nilofar, 22, and her sister-in-law Asiya, 17, in Shopian had sparked massive protests across the Valley.

Four policemen, including the then Superintendent of Police, were suspended on the recommendations of a one-man probe panel into the rape and murder case.

The fifth person to face action was an official of the forensic science laboratory. The then SP Javed Iqbal, deputy SP Rohit Basgotra, SHO Shafiq Ahmed and a sub-inspector were suspended on the basis of the Justice (retd) Muzzafar Jan Commission recommendations.

The panel held the police responsible for "destroying evidence" and said the "needle of suspicion" pointed towards their involvement in the crime.

The Commission, set up after massive protests rocked the Valley over the incident, said "...the way police tried to destroy evidence, the needle of suspicion pointed towards them."

Forensic tests had confirmed the rape and murder of the two women.

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