Ahmedabad, Dec. 29: Gujarat High Court today asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to intervene in the mass grave case and supervise the process of exhuming bodies, purportedly of victims of the 2002 riots.

Hearing a petition filed by a relative of a riot victim and social activist Teesta Setalvad, Justice K.C. Buch passed an interim order agreeing to their plea that the bodies, after being exhumed, be handed over to relatives to perform last rites.

The petition was filed yesterday after the discovery of a mass grave of riot victims in Lunawada village in Panchmahal district near Godhra.

The samples, to be extracted from the skeletal remains, would be sealed in the presence of the victims’ relatives before being sent to the Hyderabad forensic laboratory. The blood samples of the relatives would also be taken and sent to Hyderabad for DNA tests.

The forensic laboratory would have to provide two copies of the report ? one to the CBI and another to the high court. The next hearing will be on February 10.

The court said if the CBI finds something amiss in the post-riot investigation carried out by the local police, it can take action after approaching the court. There have been allegations that Gujarat police had clandestinely buried riot victims in Lunawada.

Government counsel Kamal Trivedi argued that handing over the probe to the CBI would demoralise the state police. He suggested that the court either appoint a commission or ask the additional director-general of police (crime) to investigate.

The high court told the state government that it could hand over chargesheets and panchnamas regarding the massacre in Pandarwada village in 2002. Relatives of riot victims have claimed that the skeletons found in Lunawada belong to those butchered in nearby Pandarwada.