NEWS: 100 body parts discovered in Indian police station

Indian authorities in the northern province of Uttar Pradesh have made a grisly find in one of their police stations: Dozens of human body parts.

The discovery was made by contract workers in the city of Unnao, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of Lucknow.

While cleaning a disused part of a city police station late last week, the workers chanced upon sacks filled with human remains in a long-ago locked room.

Until 2008, the room was used as a mortuary, where bodies were kept following post-mortem and ahead of funerals, Ram Kishan Yadav, an Additional Superintendent of Police for Unnao District, told CNN.

In mid-2008, he said, the mortuary was shifted to the local district hospital.

"These body parts were to be shifted to the district hospital mortuary but we don't know how they have since been kept here in the police station," he said. "Investigation is still ongoing."

Foul play is not suspected, officials say, but they are not sure why the bodies were not disposed of properly.

In Hinduism and some other Indian faiths, funerals are usually conducted by cremation.

Officials say the bodies are likely to be at least 20 years old.

Another police official said that DNA testing would be conducted on the remains.

Opposition lawmakers have called for an in-depth probe. Bharatiya Janata Party state legislator Pankaj Gupta told the Hindustan Times that his party "will take up the issue with the chief minister and organize a movement on this issue."

The discovery comes two weeks after around 80 skeletons and decayed bodies surfaced in the Ganges, India's holiest river, in the district.