Govt to release Rs220m for Sindh’s first forensic lab

KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to release Rs220 million to the University of Karachi so that a laboratory can be established at KU’s International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) to conduct proper forensic DNA testing and analysis.

Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah made the decision on Sunday during a meeting on the long-pending proposal to construct the province’s first forensic science and investigation lab. The meeting was held in the wake of the deaths of two minor brothers on November 11 reportedly due to food poisoning after dining at a DHA restaurant. Since Sindh lacks a forensic laboratory of its own, the food and other samples were despatched to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency in Lahore to help the police investigation. The CS was briefed on the existing DNA testing and analysis as well as related research facilities at KU and Jamshoro’s Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences (Lumhs).

Lumhs Vice-Chancellor Dr Bikha Ram Devrajani briefed the meeting that since 2015 the university’s DNA lab has received some 1,000 samples for forensic analysis and up to 80 per cent of them were sent by the Karachi police. He said that 18 per cent of the samples were sent by other organisations of the province and the remaining were sent by the Balochistan government.

KU VC Dr Muhammad Ajmal Khan said that similar DNA testing facilities at the university were largely being used to conduct academic and scientific research, adding that they were not primarily meant to conduct forensic analysis.

The meeting decided to upgrade the existing DNA testing and research facilities of KU and Lumhs so they can be used for forensic analysis. For the purpose the CS ordered the release of Rs220 million to KU in the next two days. The meeting resolved that police officials and public hospitals’ medico-legal officers will be trained for proper collection, handling and preservation of samples for forensic investigation, and that the training will be conducted under the aegis of experts from KU and Lumhs.

The CS said the government has reserved over 30 acres near the M-9 motorway to establish a proper forensic laboratory, adding that relevant experts and academicians should be included in the project. The meeting was attended by the health care commission chairman, the health secretary, the home secretary, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre executive director and other officials. A day earlier Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had expressed displeasure that the results of the analysis of the samples related to the investigation into the deaths of the two children had been leaked to the media by the Punjab forensic lab before their official intimation to Sindh’s investigating authorities.

The Sindh government is also under a strict obligation to establish its own forensic sciences lab in pursuance of the orders of the apex judiciary to beef up and modernise the criminal investigation, prosecution and justice system of the province.

The provincial administration will release Rs220 million in pursuance of an agreement signed between the health department and the ICCBS on October 1. The government will fund a forensic DNA and serology analysis and training facility as part of the criminal justice system. The facility can be established at the Jamil-ur-Rahman Centre for Genome Research, which comes under the Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine & Drug Research of the ICCBS.

In an earlier statement, information adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab had said that funds had been allocated and demarcation of land conducted to set up the forensic laboratory in District Malir within 30 months.

The proposed lab will be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and machinery to conduct forensic analysis as well as have the provision of being upgraded and expanded to further modernise it, Wahab had said.