Over 50 bodies were found south of Baghdad where an alleged hostage crisis has occurred recently, Iraqi Transitional President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday.

"More than 50 bodies have been pulled out of the Tigris and we have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," Talabani told a press conference.

Meanwhile, the al-Arabiya TV channel aired a footage showing dozens of bodies wrapped with white cloth and placed in rows on the ground.

A policeman told the news channel that they found 58 bodies and two of them were those of girls.

"Some bodies were without their heads," said the officer.

The bodies were found in the reach near Sweira, some 50 km south of Baghdad, and relatives carrying identities and photos have recognized most of the dead people, said the police.

"I am here looking for my son," said a middle-aged man holding a photo of a young man.

"I don't know if he is dead or still alive, but if he is proved dead I want his body," he said.

An old woman in black also looking for her son cursed the kidnappers. "God, send them to hell," she cried out.

The latest finding came days after reports said more than 60 Shiite Muslims were abducted in Madain, 30 km southeast of Baghdad.

Shiite officials said the kidnappers demanded all the Shiite residents leave the town, a sign of rising sectarian tension in the mosaic city and even across the country.

A massive raid of Madain jointly launched by Iraqi security forces and US forces failed to deliver any evidence about the hostage crisis, as people began to blame the incident on elements bent on provoking certain ethnic and religious groups.

But radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and some prominent Sunni religious groups denied the crisis, saying some people fabricated it to incite sectarian divisions.

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2005)