RAWALPINDI, Jan 15: The City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) on Wednesday (today) will hand over bodies of 16 Shia Muslims, killed in a terrorist attack on December 30, 2012, in Mastung to their relatives.

Terrorists attacked an Iran-bound bus in Mastung and killed about 20 people.

The bodies arrived in Rawalpindi on January 1, 2013 but could not be identified.

Therefore, samples were sent to Khan Research Laboratory (KRL) for Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing.

Out of the 20 victims killed in Mastung, 19 bodies arrived in Rawalpindi, out of which 16 belonged to Rawalpindi and three to Sindh.

The relatives of the victims were in a state of sorrow and grief for the last two weeks, after they failed to get the bodies of their relatives for burial.

Adding fuel to fire due to the negligence of two local Rawalpindi hospitals –Holy Family Hospital (HFH) and District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital – the DNA test took two weeks, instead of the routine six days.

The hospitals only sent samples of relatives for DNA testing without realising that Mastung authorities had misplaced DNA samples of victims.

On the other hand, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Saqib Zafar told Dawn that different Shia organisations contacted him for the bodies but he made it clear that the CDGR would directly handover the bodies to the relatives not to organisations.

He said that a total of 16 samples of the victims were matched with samples of relatives and the remaining three samples were in process and their report will soon be received.

He said that the three bodies belonging to Sindh would also be handed over to the relatives of the deceased.

It may be mentioned here that the CDGR on January 11, had to collect fresh samples from the bodies of the victims of Mastung tragedy for DNA testing, after realising that previous samples were misplaced by the district administration of Mastung.

After the bodies arrived in the city on January 1, the local administration asked the relatives to give samples for DNA testing. The 16 bodies were kept in a mortuary of HFH and three in DHQ hospital.

The samples of the relatives collected on January 1 were dispatched to Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). But, after the lapse of 10 days the victims failed to get the bodies to perform rites of burial.

DCO Saqib Zafar told Dawn that the CDGR planned to handover the dead bodies to their relatives on Tuesday but failed to do this because of suspension of cellphone services. He said that the hospital administrations in the city registered the cellphone numbers of the heirs but the service was suspended.

“Total nine people had been contacted and asked to collect the bodies on Wednesday. The remaining people will be informed about the DNA test report today,” the HFH official said.