India to have world class forensic centre soon

Forensic examination is extremely crucial to any investigation. The lack of a state of the art forensic centre in India led to the Delhi Police sending the viscera samples of Sunanda Pushkar abroad after a new report had claimed that she was murdered and did not commit suicide.

In the report it was mentioned that the death could have been caused by polonium and in order to detect this the samples had to be sent abroad since we do not have the required tools in India to detect the same.

World class forensics centre soon

The requirement for a world class forensic centre has been the need of the hour. The fact that India relies on foreign nations for forensics in several cases has led to delay like in the case of Sunanda Pushkar.

Based on the recommendation of several experts, the Home Ministry has now decided to upgrade its forensic examination centres and has even called experts from abroad to make the necessary suggestions.

An expert team from abroad is likely to visit New Delhi next month and give suggestions regarding the setting up of a top class forensic centre. Recommendations on handling of cases where uncommon poisons have been injected to cause death would also be made.

Indian investigators say that this could be a boon since it would avoid unwanted delay in investigations. Take the Sunanda case for instance, we are unable to proceed because the reports regarding the viscera samples are stuck abroad.

When samples are sent abroad it normally takes at least 2 to 4 months for the results to come out. Had we had such centres in India it could have been done in less than a week an investigating officer handling the Sunanda murder case said.

Existing infrastructure to be upgraded

The suggestions made by the team from abroad would be implemented as soon as possible and the existing forensics lab at Delhi's Rohini would be upgraded.

Some officers would also be sent abroad to train abroad. They would undergo training for six months and would be told to run the centre in India. The setting up a cold storage for the DNA division is also on the anvil.

The upgradation of the ballistic division and a new wing to study explosives will also be set up. Taking into account the increase in the number of cyber crimes there is also a proposal to set up a computer forensics division in Delhi.