CBI likely to table Panderwada report in HC today

The Central Bureau of Investigation report of DNA tests conducted on the skeletal remains of 20 post-Godhra riot victims of Panderwada town in Panchmahals district is likely to be tabled in Gujarat high court on Wednesday.

The report is likely to be tabled by the CBI counsel K S Javeri.

The DNA report, prepared by an independent laboratory in Hyderabad, had confirmed prima facie in May 2006 that the "blood samples of the relatives of victims matched with the several skeletal remains that were exhumed from a mass grave site in Panderwada in December 2005".

'Citizens for justice and peace', a Mumbai [ Images ] based NGO that helped some of the relatives of Panderwada massacre victims file petitions in the Gujarat high court for custody, sought the report to be made public as the Gujarat government did not do so.

"The report should be made public. The Gujarat government had the report since October and they did not make it public," Teesta Setalvad of the NGO said in Ahmedabad [ Images ] on Wednesday.

The Gujarat police gave details of the report in May 2006, which stated that "one of the 21 bodies killed in Panderwada massacre was handed over to the deceased's relative after identification while 20 others were buried after completing necessary legal procedures."

The Panderwada massacre is one of the worst of the post-Godhra riot incidents in which 21 persons fleeing from armed mobs were allegedly cornered in forests of Panchmahals and hacked to death.