PANJIM: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate the State Forensic Science Laboratory on October 14. He will also lay the foundation stone for a forensic institute at Dharbandora. His Goa visit attains significance due to the upcoming 2022 Assembly elections as he is scheduled to meet BJP leaders in the State.
The State authorities have repeatedly been slammed by the High Court of Bombay at Goa for an inordinate delay in making the lab fully functional. In the last hearing over 10 days ago, the court had issued a notice of show cause to the Director of the Verna-based SFSL on contempt proceedings.
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The Director General of Police (DGP) was also issued a warning, while the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) was asked to submit a status report on Goa Police’s procurement of standard samples by October 31, which are required to make the FSL fully functional, at the next hearing that has been posted for October 25.
“Despite the earlier assurances by Dr N P Waghmare, Director-FSL, that the existing forensic laboratory will be made fully operational latest by January 1, 2021, FSL is not functional because no standard samples have been procured till date and further, there is no sufficient staff available at the FSL,” the Division Bench comprising Justices M S Sonak and M S Jawalkar had observed.
The inauguration of the full-fledged state-of-the-art laboratory comes ahead of the next hearing as sources said that a status report will be submitted to the court about the fully operational lab.
Cyber forensic lab opened
The State’s first cyber forensic lab has commenced operations at the Cyber Crime Cell, Ribandar.
A statement issued by Superintendent of Cyber Crime Cell, Shobhit Saxena, states that the primary objective of the lab is to use state-of-the-art technological solutions for crime detection and investigation.
“In addition, the facility also has a fully equipped 16-seater digital forensics laboratory to facilitate all types of training. Designed with collaborative learning, the laboratory can facilitate training across a wide range of digital forensic capabilities. The laboratory also provides the facilities for undertaking forensic investigations and data recovery functions. Fully equipped with licensed digital forensics software, DFL can assist in providing the forensic expertise to any mobile, computer, hard disk, etc,” it said.
The lab’s dedicated facility also ensures that trained police personnel safely engage in digital and forensics analysis of crime, including detection, extraction of data and its analysis in a professional and technical manner.
The cyber team had recently busted two fake call centres with the help of the tools at the laboratory.
