PANJIM: The Goa Police will be able to send a maximum of 20-25 viscera samples for analysis to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Bangalore, from this month, bringing major relief to the local police and relatives of victims of criminal cases. This will help them to overcome the rejections of requests from the already overloaded Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) at Hyderabad.
The talks with the Karnataka government proved successful with Goa police accepting all 22 terms and conditions of the memorandum of understanding put forth by the Bangalore FSL. Inspector General of Police Sunil Garg confirmed the development hoping this would reduce the growing pendency of viscera samples stored at the partially-functional Verna FSL.
The agreement mentions that Goa can send a maximum of 20-25 viscera samples to the FSL per month for which nominal rate of between Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 will be charged per sample. “We have accepted all the terms and conditions while signing the MoU. We were charged at other FSLs as well,” Garg told Herald.
Goa roughly has about 700 viscera samples pending examination since 2006, as several cases were earlier rejected by CFSL Hyderabad and other major laboratories across the country. The delay was such that Goa police had to send viscera samples of British tourist Denyse Carol Sweeney 20 months after she died in August 2010, to the Regional lab at Surat. The department had no alternative but to wait for an appointment from the FSL, Bangalore, since CFSL Hyderabad had rejected the request of examining any samples from Goa for examination.
The police force then approached Kalina (Mumbai) and Chandigarh labs by sending viscera to them, but these labs too accepted just a few cases on special requests.
The signing of the MoU with FSL Bangalore has come as a major relief not just to the local police but to relatives of victims of criminal cases as well. Garg asserted this would reduce the backlog, but the option of sending viscera of ‘only important cases’ to CFSL Hyderabad, Kalina or Chandigarh remains. “We will send general cases to Bangalore lab but important ones will be sent to Hyderabad. The investigation will not suffer now,” he said.
Goa government had set up the Goa Forensic Science Laboratory at Verna to examine and analyze crime scene exhibits and physical evidence, but the laboratory is not yet fully functional.
