KARACHI, March 13: With the burial of all remains of unidentified victims of the Oct 18 bombings, families of at least six victims of the Karsaz blasts on Benazir Bhutto’s welcome procession are dumbstruck at the police’s inept forensic approach, responsible for a disastrous scientific inquest of DNA matching between their blood samples and the remains.

The distressed families are clueless whether their loved ones missing since the attack on the Pakistan People’s Party procession were buried or whether they should still wait for a final report of blood samples’ match with the DNA profiles created from unidentified body parts found at the blast site.

The most unfortunate part of the story is that the investigators and the institutions concerned appear unaware of any progress in this regard whenever approached by the grieving families and even after the burial of the remains, any clue to the untraced people seems a distant dream.

“We collected blood samples from the missing persons’ families and forwarded them to the Dr A.Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity. “We arranged such samples twice on the institute’s request. First we collected on our own but they were later asked to collect samples on their own.”

It began with the search of more than 20 persons who attended the Oct 18 procession of Ms Bhutto’s homecoming and went missing. The lethargic process led to clues to a few untraced people and four families deposited their blood samples.

The five-month exercise appears to be headed towards a dead end, and the investigators and the institute concerned are responsible for this.

However, none of the officials from both sides came up with a justification for such a delay.

“In this particular case of investigations, the police are a kind of coordinator,” said a senior official and one of the members of the investigation team formed after the incident. “We have done our job and have been waiting for the final call from the institute but there is no call yet from the institute. It has been more than two months since we completed our job. Under such facts, one should not blame the police alone.”

The official’s comments may save the police from complete accountability, but being the coordinator, they also failed to convince the desperate families about the situation.

“We are in touch with the police officials concerned and the laboratory at Karachi University,” said Farooq Awan, the elder brother of missing Rizwan. “But none of them has anything to tell us. Both have adopted delaying tactics. In such a situation, what should we do? What should my ailing mother do and, most importantly, should I convince my family that Rizwan is no more? If this is the fact then there was no need to hold such a lengthy exercise.”

The PPP leadership, on the other hand, appears firm on expediting the process once it takes over the administration, but the question about accountability of the delay remains, causing the families of about a dozen missing people to forget about their loved ones once for all.

“We have buried them temporarily and may get them back permanently once they are identified,” said the designated leader of the PPP’s parliamentary party in the Sindh Assembly, Pir Mazharul Haq.“They are the most respectable persons of PPP history. We gave these unknown soldiers, Janisaraan-i-Benazir, a proper burial. On each of their graves we wrote Mein Bhutto hoon (I am a Bhutto),” he said.