11 bodies, 4 human skulls recovered from Bhakra canal in Jind

Jind: Eleven "highly decomposed" bodies, including of a woman, and four human skulls were recovered on Sunday from Bhakra canal here during its annual maintenance, police said.

The bodies were recovered near Narwana and Garhi areas of the canal, which enters Haryana from Punjab.

While eight bodies were recovered from Narwana, three bodies and four skulls were found from Garhi, police said.

"Eight bodies were recovered from the canal near Dhakal village in Narwana," a police official of the Sadar Police Station, Narwana, said.

Police is contemplating going for DNA test for identification of the bodies.

"The canal was shut down for annual maintenance and the water level was down substantially. We recovered eleven bodies from various locations inside the canal," Jind's Superintendent of Police, Shashank Anand, said.

He said that one body has been identified and the deceased was from Patiala.The Punjab Police has been informed in this regard, he added.

A case has been registered under relevant provisions of the law, a Narwana police official said, adding possibilities of more bodies being found from the canal cannot be ruled out.

"We have kept the bodies for their identification in government hospital at Narwana and are in touch with our counterparts in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh," the police official said.