By Altaf Hussain
BBC News, Srinagar
**The exhumation of the bodies of two women raped and murdered in Indian-administered Kashmir has begun under the auspices of federal investigators. **A team of senior doctors from Delhi’s prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been flown to Srinagar city to conduct the autopsies.
There have been allegations that the DNA samples taken from the women had been tampered with.
The case prompted days of street protests across the Kashmir valley.
The bodies of the two women were discovered in a canal in Shopian on 30 May.
The government initially maintained that they had died in an accident and that they had not been raped or killed.
But the police later said they had been raped and murdered.
Tight security
Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) began exhuming the bodies soon after day-break.
All roads leading to the graveyard in Shopian have been sealed by the police.
Security is tight and reporters are not allowed into the area.
The CBI was given control of the investigation after state police failed to make any progress in identifying the culprits.
Four police officials were alleged to have destroyed vital evidence related to the case.
They were suspended and later arrested. They were recently released on bail.
A report submitted to the high court last month confirmed allegations that the DNA samples of the two dead women had been tampered with.
According to reports, the vaginal swabs of the women were also fudged.
The rape and murder of the two women led to widespread demonstrations across the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in June.
At least two people were killed and 500 wounded in clashes with the police.
The incident put a huge question mark on the credibility of the state’s young chief minister, Omar Abdullah who had initially denied rape and murder and said that the two women had drowned to death.
Mr Abdullah later apologised and ordered a judicial inquiry into the case.