Bodies of Karachi airport attack militants to be exhumed

A medical board will exhume the bodies of 10 unidentified attackers buried at the graveyard

KARACHI: Over two years after law enforcers killed 10 armed militants who attacked one of the country's most important airports in Karachi, a medical board has been set up to exhume their bodies to resolve the mystery of their identities.

A medical board, under the supervision of a judicial officer, will exhume the bodies of 10 unidentified attackers buried at the graveyard run by the Edhi Foundation on November 22 for their identification.



This was said in a report submitted by the police surgeon to the judicial magistrate of District Malir, where the investigators had earlier approached the court seeking permission to exhume the bodies to collect DNA samples. The judicial magistrate had earlier directed the health authorities to constitute a medical board.

Around 10 heavily-armed militants, who had stormed the Karachi airport on June 9, 2014, were killed by the army commandos and personnel of other security forces during an operation lasting about five hours. However, they were buried at the Edhi-run cemetery, thus their identity remained unknown.

The report said that the four-member medical team will collect samples for DNA in order to establish the identities of the slain assailants, who, the authorities claimed, were all foreigners.

Filing its report on Friday, a police surgeon informed that the medical board headed by Prof Farhat Hussain Mirza, the chairman of forensic medicine department of Jinnah Sindh Medical University, has been constituted.

The medical board will exhume the bodies to obtain samples for DNA in the presence of a judicial magistrate on November 22 this year at Edhi graveyard, stated the report.



It may be recalled that CTD recently claimed to have arrested two suspects, allegedly belonging to banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The suspects have been identified as Ishaq alias Bobby and Mohammad Asim alias Ahmed alias Capri. The investigators alleged that Bobby's brother-in-law, Ehtesham, and his friend, Majid, along with eight other militants were killed by the law enforcement agencies during a deadly terror attack on Karachi's Jinnah International Airport.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2016.