Doctors perform post mortem on Gujjar stir victims

Doctors conducted post-mortem procedures on the bodies of the Gujjar agitation victims at Karwadi and Sikandara on Monday, about ten days after they were killed in police firing and violence.

Three teams of doctors of the Rajasthan government carried out the autopsies in a make-shift camp at Karwadi which was set up in a field close to the site of the agitation. The condition of the bodies, which had been kept in metal trunks with ice slabs, had deteriorated.

Initially three of the 16 bodies were sent for autopsy, officials said. The bodies were being held by the agitators who had refused to hand them over to the state authorities.

In Sikandara in Dausa district, two teams of doctors also started the autopsies on the bodies of those killed in the May 24 violence. Earlier, acceding to the Gujjars' demand, the state authorities dispatched the 14 bodies from the Sawai Man Singh Hospital in Jaipur to Sikandara for the post mortem.

Camping in Karwadi, Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla, who has been leading the agitation for the Scheduled Tribe quota, offered to cooperate with the medical team in the conduct of the autopsies while asking the doctors to do their job honestly. Four representatives of the community, including a relative of one of the dead, monitored the post mortem. As many as 41 people have been killed in the Gujjar stir.