NOWSHERA: The police on Tuesday recovered four bodies stuffed in gunnysacks in Bara Banda area of Risalpur here.

Officials said that the local people informed the police about the presence of suspicious gunny sacks lying on the roadside in the area. The police reached the spot and on search recovered bodies from the sacks.

The bodies were shifted to the district headquarters hospital, Nowshera, for autopsy where doctors said that the victims were between 20 and 30 years of age.

The officials said that national identity cards were found on the bodies, which identified them as Hafiz Asghar Ali Khan, Irshad Ali and Noor Rehman of Par Hoti area of Mardan district, and Mushtaq Ali of Tarkai, Swabi district.

District police officer Rabnawaz Khan confirmed that four bodies had been recovered from Bara Banda area. He said that no marks of violence were found on the bodies.

The autopsy report confirmed that the victims had neither been shot nor hanged to death.

However, hospital sources said that they might have been poisoned to death, adding that samples had been obtained from the bodies for laboratory test to confirm the cause of the killings.

Later, the bodies were handed over to relatives, who said that the victims had been missing for the last six months.

Published in Dawn, November 19th , 2014