20000331

Excavation of bodies

ordered in occupied

Kashmir

ANANTNAG: Bowing to pressure from hundreds of protesters, Indian authorities agreed on Thursday to exhume five bodies in occupied Kashmir to check whether these were of missing local residents.

Protesters shut shops and businesses for the third straight day on Thursday in Anantnag, a town 55 km south of Srinagar.

They questioned the Indian military's claim that the five bodies buried in a nearby village were of the suspected assailants of 35 Sikhs massacred in occupied Kashmir on the eve of President Bill Clinton's visit to India March 21-25.

The five were killed last Saturday by the security forces.

Munir Ahmed Shal, an attorney who led the protesters, said the bodies were of five local residents who have been missing for the past one week.

Pawan Kotwa, the local administrator, said a magistrate will supervise the exhumation of the bodies on Friday and establish their identities.ÑAP