August 19, 2002	Monday	Jamadi-us-Saani 9, 1423

SOHAM (England) Aug 18: A sleepy rural English town plunged into mourning for two missing schoolgirls on Sunday after a couple were arrested on suspicion of their murder and two bodies were found in countryside nearby.

The disappearance two weeks ago of 10-year-old best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman from Soham in eastern England sparked one of Britain’s biggest ever manhunts and held the country on tenterhooks.

It has ended in tragedy. The arrests of a 28-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman on suspicion of murder, plus the discovery of the bodies, has extinguished any hope that they are alive.

A police spokeswoman said on Sunday the two suspects remained in custody at separate police stations. The bodies have been kept at the remote woodland spot where they were found as forensic examination continued through the night.

“We are still not in a position to confirm their identities,” the spokeswoman said.

Because of Britain’s tight rules on releasing information about suspects, police did not name the arrested pair.

On Friday, police said they had questioned a 28-year-old caretaker and a 25-year-old female teaching assistant at the girls’ school as witnesses.

Since they vanished on August 4 wearing identical red Manchester United soccer shirts the search for Holly and Jessica has received round-the-clock media coverage in Britain.

More than 400 police from several forces took part in the investigation.

Candlelit vigils were held in the girls’ small town and detectives received some 14,000 tip-offs from the public. Manchester United soccer idol David Beckham, whose Number 7 shirt the girls were wearing, made a personal plea for them.

The two bodies were found by walkers on Saturday near the US air base of Lakenheath, close to the village of Mildenhall.

MOURNING: Hundreds of Soham residents packed its church on Sunday numbed by the tragic turn of events.

Tim Alban Jones, the vicar of Soham, asked them to pray for the parents of Holly and Jessica, who have become reluctant public figures, making agonised televised pleas for the daughters’ return.

“We cannot even begin to imagine how harrowing this nightmare has been for them,” Jones told his congregation. “The whole town feels violated by the disappearance of Jessica and Holly.”

The last sighting of the two friends was on security camera footage as they walked through the town together shortly after leaving a family barbecue on a Sunday afternoon.

Violent crime has by some measures surged by 28 percent in Britain over the past year, topping polls as the country’s most pressing political issue.

But the events in this small rural community, far from the crime-ridden inner cities, have touched a rare chord of public anxiety.—Reuters