How did Niloufer and her sister-in-law, Aasiya, die? Were they raped? Not according to the latest investigations into what is called the Shopian case.

The CBI exhumed the bodies of the two women on Monday and forensic experts have ruled that there is no conclusive evidence that Aasiya was raped. Her hymen and septum have been found intact, medical evidence that there was no penetration. This contradicts the findings of an earlier post-mortem.

In May, 22-year-old Niloufer and 17-year-old Aasiya were found dead in a shallow stream in Kashmir's Shopian district, about 50 kilometres from Srinagar. The police first said the women had drowned. Villagers in the area declared the women had been raped by army officers and began violent protests, some of the worst the state has seen.

Chief minister Omar Abdullah ordered a judicial inquiry, which concluded that the two women had been raped and killed. The case was handed over to the CBI last week. The bodies were exhumed by the agency after a doctor confessed that she had never taken vaginal swabs of the two women. Frightened by local protests, she said, she passed off other samples as Niloufer's and Aasiya's.

Forensic sources say that it will take them at least a fortnight to figure out the cause of death. Keeping the sensitivity of the case in mind, CBI ensured that religious clerics, two female doctors and magistrates were present when the two bodies were exhumed. To win the trust of villagers in the area, the bodies were studied on location. The findings were then shared with them, and villagers have testified to NDTV that they are satisfied with the way CBI carried out the tests.