File photo: Agencies

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican government wants prosecutors to re-examine the 2014 mass abduction and probable massacre of 43 students from a college, a senior official said on Wednesday.

According to the interior ministry's deputy minister of immigration and human rights, Alejandro Encinas, the original investigation of the crime in Iguala, a town in south Guerrero state, was riddled with irregularities.

"Today we urge the national prosecutor general's office to review the investigation, correct the omissions and allow a diligent investigation, so we can determine what acts authorities or civilians committed in this disappearance," Encinas said at a press conference.

To date, 53 of the 142 suspects arrested in connection with the case have been released, he said, including Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, a leader of the criminal gang called Guerreros Unidos, that allegedly took part in the abduction, torture and presumed killing of the students.

Mexico's previous administration concluded that local Iguala police commanded the buses the students were riding in on Sept. 26, 2014, under orders of the mayor, and turned them over to the criminal gang for "disposal." The mayor was apparently fearing that the students would disrupt a speech that his wife was delivering at a public event.

Gang members reportedly confessed to having incinerated the students at a garbage dump, but no traces of the victims were ever found.

The parents of the victims never accepted the investigation results, which independent forensic experts were never able to corroborate.