Jakarta – Residents in the troubled western province of Aceh have dug up 51 bodies of civilians killed by Indonesian trooops last week for allegedly possessing illegal arms, a report said Friday.

The bodies were found in four separate places on Wednesday and Thursday by residents in the Beutong Ateuh valley in West Aceh, the Kompas daily said. Twenty bodies were found in two places Wednesday, and 31 the next day in two further mass graves.

Local military commander Colonel Syarifuddin Tippe has said the military launched an operation in the Beutong Ateuh area to sweep for illegal weapons.

The villagers said residents were told by the troops to gather in a field near a school for an identity check, but opened fire and massacred them in cold blood. Initial reports had put the death toll at 31.

The residents, family members and neighbours of the dead, found the corpse of Tengku Bantaqiah, a former political prisoner who ran the school, with 23 other bodies in the largest grave site on Thursday.

Seven others were buried 50 meters apart from the main grave, while residents Wednesday found five bodies dumped over a 20 meter cliff and 15 others that had been thrown on a roadside about a kilometer away from the cliff.

The residents washed the bodies and prepared them for a proper Moslem burial, Kompas said, while troops watched from a distance from security posts which had been set up around the village.

In the July 23 raid the troops seized a camera, documents and two kilograms of marijuana, Tippe reportedly said, adding they also found 10 hectares (24 acres) of hemp plants. But a local human rights worker Yacob Hamzah said the hemp plantation did not belong to Bantaqiah or his followers.