KP desperately needs a modern forensic laboratory

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has failed to establish a Forensic Science Laboratory on the line of the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) which was proposed to the provincial government back in 2014.

The absence of such a high-tech forensic science services facility has not only brought huge embarrassment for the provincial government many a time, but also exposed its tall claims of good governance. It had to send samples of nearly 200 suspects for DNA test on January 20 in the murder case of four-year-old Asma.

The provincial authorities are still waiting for the report of DNA profiling of the suspect, who is at large.

In comparison, the suspect in the rape and murder of seven-year old Zainab in Kasur has been nabbed through DNA matching by the PFSA in Lahore after carrying analysis of at least 600 DNA samples.

The sources in the Planning and Development (P&D) Department told The News on Friday that the project to set up the Forensic Science Laboratory in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa like the one that exists in Punjab has not been getting enough heed.

They added that the province at the moment had no forensic science laboratory having the capacity to help the security forces in forensic investigations and DNA profiling, etc.

They said the project has been highlighted in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the current financial year (2017-18) as foreign assistance project (FAP) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is providing Rs1 million for the project. It is included in 19 new projects of the Home Department, for which only Rs437 million have been allocated.

They informed that a cluster of donors and UNDP in 2013-14 had decided to help the provincial government establish a state-of-the-art FSL at Peshawar as part of the Rule of Law Programme.

The FSL was designed to have the departments of audiovisual analysis, computer forensic unit, crime and death scene, DNA and Serology, forensic photography, firearm and tool marks, narcotics, latent fingerprints, pathology, polygraph, questioned document and toxicology.

The sources said that the then secretary Home and Tribal Affairs Department Syed Akhtar Ali Shah and UNDP Rule of Law programme manager Ashraf Khan along with other officers had established closed coordination with the PFSA.

They confided that incumbent director general of the PFSA, Dr Ashraf Tahir, was also taken onboard as consultant to provide technical support to set up Forensic Science Laboratory.

The DG PFSA, Dr Ashraf Tahir, was hired as consultant by the donors to help the provincial government in setting up the FSL in the province. He provided support to the provincial government and a smaller Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) with limited forensic facilities was even established in Landakai, Malakand to pilot the establishment of a Punjab-like facility in the province.

The donors also facilitated about 20 police personnel having BSc qualifications to have a six-month extensive training in the PFSA.

They further confided that the incumbent director general of the PFSA, Dr Ashraf Tahir was also taken aboard as consultant to provide technical support to set up such an FSL in Peshawar.

Ashraf Khan told this scribe that both the donors and government had felt the need to establish a high-tech FSL on the line of PFSA and a lot of work was done in this regard.

He said the PFSA is under the Home Department and the police department has no role in running its affairs. Punjab spent Rs4 billion to establish the innovative and sophisticated PFSA in just 30 months in 2012.

The establishment of PFSA has undoubtedly marked a new era in our national history. Being a full service, state of the art forensic laboratory having 14 disciplines under one roof is one of few of its kind in the world.

However, Ashraf Khan said the KP would need Rs24 billion to Rs25 billion to build such a facility that three years ago could be built with Rs3 billion to Rs4 billion.

Syed Akhtar Shah said that it has been observed that the change from eyewitness testimony to scientific physical evidence testimony is colossal in the criminal justice system. Human can lie, forget and can be threatened to appear in the court or can be frightened from the crime scene where physical evidence is always lying as a silent witness. A well-qualified and properly trained scientist backed by a well-equipped FSL can make this silent witness speak in the court of law, he added.

Akhtar Ali Shah said that the Home Department had coordinated with the Khyber Medical College, departments of Chemistry and Geology of the Peshawar University and hired consultants to development P-1 for the project. The Terms of Reference (ToRs) were also prepared and the entire project was submitted to the government. “I don’t know as to what happened to this vital project then,” he said.