Kaduna checks identity of 19 bodies buried by police

The authorities in Kaduna State in northern Nigeria have launched a probe to determine the identities of 19 corpses buried by police in a mass grave following allegations that they were protestors killed during last week's general strike. Troops and armed police were called out to patrols the streets of Kaduna on Monday to restore order after riots erupted in Kadun's Tudun Wada district, where the corpses were discovered in a mass grave in the local cemetery. Police said the bodies belonged to armed robbers who had been killed in recent gun battles. But local residents who exhumed the bodies said they recognised among them relations who had been arrested by the police during street protests that accompanied the four-day general strike. The 11 to 14 October stoppage was called by Nigeria's main trade union movement to demand the reversal of a 25 percent increase in fuel prices. “It is important here to dispel the rumour said to be making the rounds that the corpses were those of the people arrested in the wake of last week’s demonstration against the increase in fuel prices,” Kaduna governor Ahmed Makarfi said in a radio and television broadcast. Makarfi supported police claims that the corpses belonged to armed robbers shot dead during clashes with the police. The governor said more than 30 people who were arrested by the police last week had been charged in court and released on bail. However, “to ascertain the truth about the entire episode” a special panel has been appointed to identify the corpses and the circumstances of their death, Makarfi said. Only one person was confirmed killed in Kaduna during last week’s general strike, 12-year-old Sani Idris. The boy's parents and eye-witnesses said he was shot dead by the police during clashes with protesters. On Tuesday heavily armed anti-riot police were still patrolling the tense streets of Kaduna to prevent any further eruption of unrest. Kaduna, which has a mixed population of Muslims and Christians, has been a volatile city since sectarian clashes broke out there in 2000 over proposals to introduce strict Islamic Shari’ah law in Kaduna state. More than 2,000 people were killed in the outbreak of violence.