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When the specialists opened the package, police found the severed appendage inside.

“Upon arrival, officers noted that the [box] package possibly had blood stains on it,” Ottawa police said in a statement.

“The Hazmat Unit and Emergency Operations Section were called and upon further inspection of the package it was determined that there was possibly a human foot in the box.”

Police said the package was addressed to the Conservative Party of Canada and not to a specific person.

The horror was not confined to Ottawa. Ottawa police were consulting with their counterparts in Montreal after they discovered a severed torso in a suitcase.

Montreal police sifted through a heap of garbage in the city’s west end to see if they might turn up any missing limbs.

Authorities in both cities are trying to determine if there might be a link to the body parts found in Ottawa.

By late afternoon, a coroner confirmed the foot found in Ottawa was indeed human remains.

The package was taken from the scene in a yellow bag and escorted by police into a minivan waiting by the curb.

Steve Hodgson, a police sergeant who arrived at 130 Albert Street, just three blocks south of Parliament Hill, said the package was delivered by Canada Post and had been partially opened by a receptionist at the party’s 12th floor headquarters, who then called police.

“It wasn’t opened any further. It was our Hazmat Team that eventually took a look at it.”

A Conservative MP who showed up later at his party’s headquarters was horrified by the discovery.