RAWALPINDI: The Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) has told the Punjab police that it will not accept DNA samples from more than five suspects in a single case. The police have been asked to submit DNA evidence after a thorough investigation and high quality detective work because the agency is overburdened in this regard.

Divisional police chiefs and city police officers have been directed to follow orders regarding the collection of DNA evidence from crime scenes after the PFSA expressed concerns regarding the submission of a high number of samples for DNA analysis.

They have been told to ask investigation officers to send samples after thorough investigation, in order to avoid delays and other problems.

The agency said its DNA section has received an excessive number of samples per case, causing human resource constraints. Employees of this section are overburdened and testing these samples is expensive, increasing the cost of analysis per case when hundreds or thousands of samples are submitted in a single case.

Provincial govt’s sole forensic testing laboratory will not accept samples from more than five suspects per case

Thousands of DNA samples were submitted in some sexual assault and murder cases, including the Zainab and the Chunian cases, the agency said.

In order to complete the processing of these cases on priority, as requested by the police, special teams of scientists were formed and their working hours and resources were dedicated to just those few cases, leading to a backlog of other cases in the DNA section.

According to PFSA director general, the agency has spent Rs650 million, which represents a major portion of its overall budget and is therefore unsustainable. Therefore, only samples of individuals whose implication in the case is strongly corroborated on the basis of investigations conducted by the officer should be submitted.

The PFSA has also said that the agency will not accept more than five suspects’ samples in a single case because the mass screening of a population for DNA analysis is not conducted anywhere in the world nowadays.

A senior police officer who has been leading investigations into major murder cases admitted that it is common practice among the police to submit an excessive number of samples to the PFSA to test.

He said that although the process of submitting and analysing DNA samples is costly and time consuming, police sometimes dispatch many samples that are irrelevant and have nothing to do with a case.

He added that it was difficult for the police to send an investigation officer to Lahore to submit DNA evidence for analysis. It is mandatory for the investigation officer to deliver these samples by hand.

A PFSA laboratory has been established in Rawalpindi, the officer said, but it is not operational.

“Had the local laboratory been made operational it would have been a good facility for the local police, and less hectic and expensive,” he said.

When asked about the importance of DNA analysis in murder and sexual assault cases, another police officer said that the police collect evidence from the crime scene and send specimens obtained from the victim and suspected rapist.

In cold cases, DNA analysis can lead to results that help the police find suspects and prove their involvement, he said, adding that DNA analysis is considered one of the most important in forensic analysis.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2020