In a new twist to the Shopian alleged rape and murder case, forensic scientists have found that one of the two victims was a virgin.

Forensic scientists from AIIMS, accompanying the CBI team, have found during autopsy of the exhumed bodies that the hymen of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan was intact, thereby ruling out the possibility of rape, official sources said today.

The forensic experts have shown the intact hymen to doctors of Mushawarat Majlis-e-Committee, an amalgam which spearheaded the 47-day agitation against the alleged rape and murder of the two women by security personnel, who were present at the site, they said.

A special CBI forensic team yesterday collected samples from the bodies of the two women after exhuming them nearly four months after the incident.

The team, comprising senior AIIMS doctors, collected a number of samples from the bodies in a process that lasted nine hours. They conducted the autopsy after obtaining necessary approval of the family of the victims -- 22-year-old Neelofar and her sister-in-law Aasiya.