NEW DELHI, Feb 24: The charred remains of the bodies still unclaimed after a train bombing that killed 68 people in an Indian village nearly a week ago were given Islamic burials on Saturday, an official said.

Most of the victims of the attack were Pakistanis, and India has already turned over about two dozen bodies to Islamabad. “We had made preparations for the burial of 24 bodies but one was claimed by some relatives.

“We have buried 23 bodies today,” said Mohammed Shaheen, the head of the Muslim Wakf Board, a religious trust in the northern state of Haryana, where the attack took place.

The remains were buried in a Muslim cemetery in the village of Mehrana, a few kilometres from Dewana, Shaheen said. The graves were clearly demarcated so that family members could later exhume them if DNA results match, he said.

“We are going to put a permanent mark on the body and a number on the grave so that tomorrow, if someone can identify it on the basis of DNA, the body can be exhumed,” he said.

Indian police have released a sketch of two men who they suspect to be involved in the attack, which both Pakistan and India have said was an attempt to derail their peace process.

“God is Great,” shouted hundreds of Indian Muslims who reached the funeral site. The mass funeral was the last act of the tragedy, laying to rest the final 23 passengers, thought to be Pakistanis, who were so badly burnt they were no longer recognisable.

Haryana state Chief Minister Bupinder Singh Hooda attended the burials. “This mass outpouring of grief of the people gathered here and their show of sympathy for their Pakistani brothers and sisters ... is a slap on the face of these cowardly terrorists who did this dastardly act,” he said.

Political leaders, scholars and religious figures fell to their knees to pray as one coffin after another was lowered into the ground. “They came on a holiday, for a wedding or just as tourists and the least we can do is to give them a decent burial,” said Mohammad Shaheen.

Officials on both sides have been careful to avoid saying whom they suspect for the attack, dispensing with the usual finger-pointing that follows such attacks. But there have been a growing number of reports in India that New Delhi suspects Muslim militant groups for the bombing.

The Indian Express newspaper said police were searching for a railway employee who may be linked to the blasts and who resembled one of the two suspects.

Mobile phone records show that Taj was in the area of the blasts on Sunday night and police have also recovered 50 bottles of a kerosene and diesel mixture from his house in Bikaner.—Agencies