Nevertheless, Industries Minister Suresh Mehta has been asked to rush to the spot to verify the facts. The Congress is also contemplating taking legal action against the government for willful and criminal negligence in tackling the victims.

Not wanting to be caught on the wrong foot, the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee on Friday held a special screening of video cassettes of the bodies discovered this week by a party team led by PCC president C D Patel. The party also supplied photographs of the bodies to reporters attending the specially called press conference.

Patel later told newsmen that the government did notwant to show the exact figure of the dead and that is why it never cared to find out these bodies from the island ``which is visible from the mainland''.

He said that earlier another party under his leadership had found seven bodies on the island and lambasted the ``so-called relief and rescue operations'' launched by the State government after the cyclone.

Patel said the string of such discoveries showed how ``amateurish'' the State government had been in carrying out relief and rescue operations. He said it surprised him that search teams and aerial surveys conducted by the State government and other agencies failed to notice the highly decomposed bodies lying about on the ground. Patel has demanded fixing up of an agency for pinning down responsibility for neglect, finding out of missing persons and disposing of bodies still lying at several places. The PCC chief has alleged that the government was trying to destroy the evidence and was disposing of bodies without taking them on record with a view tosuppressing the facts and figures.

Reacting sharply, Suresh Mehta has refuted the Congress allegation and invited Patel along with him to the area. Mehta said that Patel was trying to take political mileage out of the tragedy and was driven by mischief in alleging that thousands of bodies were lying in the area unattended.

He said there was no question of the government suppressing the figures of the death toll as it was the government which was declaring toll figures on a daily basis and which conducted search and rescue for a full week. Mehta said C D Patel could have taken the government team to the island ``but then he would not get the chance of alleging that thousands of bodies are lying about''.