KARACHI, Oct 5: Veiled women staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Sindh Secretariat on Saturday demanding of the government to hand over the bodies of two men for burial who died in a shootout in Defence Housing Authority on Sept 11.

The demonstrators were carrying placards and banners in their hands.

Women had earlier staged demonstrations at different places in the city, including outside the Edhi Home in Sohrab Goth where the bodies of the two foreigners have been kept in the morgue.

Umme Ismail, who was leading the demonstration on Saturday, said these two men died 23 days back, but they had not yet been buried. Bodies of those who died in Kohat were handed over to local people, but they failed to comprehend why the bodies of these two men were not being handed over to local residents.

“The government’s condition for handing over the bodies to their heirs is nothing but a joke, as the government has handed over the heirs of those who died in DHA to non-Muslims,” she added.

A delegation of the women demonstrators went inside the secretariat building to meet the Sindh home secretary, Brig Mukhtar Ahmed, but he declined to meet them and sent his representative to hold talks with the delegation, sources said.

The women demonstrators said: “We are mothers of martyrs who sacrificed their lives in Kashmir and Afghanistan jihad. Our sons were buried by mothers in Kashmir, and it is our duty to bury the two Mujahideen, who died in DHA, in accordance with Islamic rites.”

Sindh chief secretary K. B. Rind was briefing journalists on the measures taken to hold fair, free and transparent general elections while the demonstration was being staged outside his office.

When home secretary Brig Mukhtar Ahmed was asked to comment on the matter, he drew a blank on it. His attention was drawn to the news appearing in the press for the past three days about such demonstrations, but he said he was unaware of it.

Earlier on Friday night, the inspector-general of the Sindh Police, Syed Kamal Shah, talking to reporters at a dinner at the Garden South police headquarters, said the two dead bodies kept in the Edhi’s morgue officially had not been identified yet.

He said those who were arrested after the “alleged” encounter with police in DHA on Sept 11 had been in the custody of intelligence agencies, and police did not interrogate them.

Asked whether those alive had identified their dead accomplices, Mr Shah said: “Since they are not with police, we don’t know about it.”

The sources said the five suspects, who were arrested, told the investigators the names of their accomplices, who died in the shootout.

Two alleged activists of Al Qaeda were shot dead and five others arrested after a three-hour long alleged encounter with law-enforcement agencies on Sept 11 in DHA. Seven personnel of law-enforcement agencies were injured in the alleged shootout.