In an important judgement, the Gujarat High Court on Thursday entrusted the Central Bureau of Investigation with the task of collecting samples of skeletal remains of Gujarat riot victims from the mass grave in Lunavada village of Panchmahal district in the state.

Justice C K Buch,hearing the petition filed by the mother of a riot victim and an NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, directed officials of the CBI in an interim order to collect samples and send them to the forensic laboratory at Red Hill in Hyderabad for DNA testing.

The High Court said that the samples from each body found from the disputed mass grave should be collected in the presence of the investigating team officials and should be sent to Hyderabad in sealed packages for testing.

"CBI may be assisted by a police officer from the state," the court added.

"The report of the analysis of the samples should be sent to the CBI and a copy of the report be also send to the court in a sealed cover," Justice Buch said in his order.

The court hearing the plea, filed on Wednesday by a riot-affected woman, Ameena Habib Rasool, who had lost her 25-year-old son, Ayub, during the riots, earlier dissmissed Gujarat government's plea stating that the CBI should not be involved in entire process of collecting samples and DNA testing.

The government pleader said that the involvement of CBI in the matter will have a 'demoralising effect' on the police force of the state, which had conducted the burial of the bodies in a transparent manner.

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