The bodies of 16 miners abducted in 2011 by unknown miscreants have been recovered from a mass grave in the Darra Adam Khel area of ​​Kohat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to the officials of Shangla Coal Minor Workers Association, the bodies were discovered in the area of ​​Khyber Agency after which rescue operation was launched using all available resources.

Sarfraz Khan, the spokesman for the Shangla Coal Minor Workers Association, said that after receiving reports of miners’ bodies from the mass grave, he accompanied local political leaders to the site and instructed rescue workers to excavate the mass grave.

He said that initially rescue workers found six bodies at the site but after further excavation, a total of 16 bodies were recovered.

Thirty-two miners from Shangla District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were abducted by unknown miscreants in 2011 from a mine in Darra Adam Khel.

Sixteen of the 32 miners somehow managed to escape, while the rest were taken hostage, whose bodies were recovered on Thursday.

Sarfraz Khan said it appears that the men were killed shortly after their abduction, and some of them were identified by their clothes.

The bodies recovered from the mass grave will be buried after the funeral prayers tomorrow.

It should be noted that a large number of people from the Shangla district go to different parts of the country for mining.

It was not immediately clear who the miscreants were, as the area was a stronghold of various terrorist groups in 2011.

It may be recalled that this is not the first time that such a large number of bodies have been recovered from a mass grave in Pakistan but also in 2014 16 bodies were recovered from a single grave, most of which were unidentified.