PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department on Friday directed the Khyber Teaching Hospital to review its proposal to charge the police fee for forensic services after the plan generated a controversy.

A few days ago, the board of governors of KTH, a medical teaching institution, had proposed the imposition of fees on the police for forensic services provided by the department of forensic services, including autopsies, medico-legal examination, age estimation, toxicology and DNA analysis.

The proposal has attracted a barrage of criticism from social media users.

In a letter addressed to the KMC dean, the health department said the MTI KTH had proposed through a letter a fee structure for 17 forensic services and that under the Rules of Business, 1985, the provision of medico-legal services was responsibility of the health department that was providing those services free of charge.

It added that given the fact that the forensic services played the most decisive role in the criminal justice system, charging fees for those services could jeopardise the criminal justice system, especially in the context of KP, where various socio-cultural and economic barriers that lead to the disinclination of society to avail those services were already challenging the smooth operation of criminal investigations.

Dept head insists proposal floated to generate funds

“Charging fee for forensic services may aggravate the grievances of the complainants and may lead to their distrust in the system,” it said.

The health department also pointed out that the provincial government provided one-line budget to the MTI and in case, additional funds were required, a case might be submitted to the government with justification for increase in the budget.

“In view of the above, the proposed fee structure for forensic services is regretted and the case is returned for revisit of the decision by concerned board of governors,” it added.

Prof Hakim Khan Afridi, chairman of the department of forensic medicines at the Khyber Medical College, told Dawn that it was a proposal to seek funds from police for all work his department did and that the people had nothing to do with payments for mortuaries and other offences.

“We have high-profile infrastructure with the latest DNA lab for which we need funds. A proposal has been forwarded by BoG to health department and we are waiting,” he said.

He said the people neither paid charges for those services nor they would do so.

He said the proposal was sent to the health department after approval by the BoG.

Sources said the KMC had proposed that it needed money for the tests it did for police in criminal cases.

“The police have enough funds and wanted to improve level of their investigation further because making payments will make it binding on the department to process the samples rapidly and help police in courts,” a source said.

He said the KTH BoG was requested to take the initiative, which was related to two government departments.

The KTH had moved the summary three months ago to the health department seeking permission to charge the investigation section of the police for tests on the pattern of the public sector labs, which take fee for investigations done for NAB, ANF and police.

“Senior police officials had agreed to give more rates than the suggested ones. Presently, the only charges the people pay are for preservation of bodies to delay burials of relatives,” the source said.

He said the KTH had conducted 1,000 tests, including postmortems, tests in cases involving sexual assaults, age determination and poisoning to assist police and courts in crimes detection, they said. We deal with police as far tests are concerned.

The proposed fee structure for medico-legal examination had suggested charging Rs5,000 per autopsy from Peshawar district, Rs20,000 per postmortem when cases were referred from other districts and Rs20,000 per exhumation.

For age estimation, the department has proposed Rs2,000 per person, Rs2,000 for medico legal certificates in cases of sexual assault, Rs2,000 in cases of human injuries, Rs1,500 freezer charges per 24 hours for cadaver.

For toxicological analysis, the department had proposed charging Rs4,000 detection of poison in four items of viscera, Rs2,000 for alcohol analysis, Rs3,000 for drug abuse analysis and Rs1,000 for drug chemistry.

For the DNA analysis in case of sexual assault, KTH had proposed charging Rs25,000 per case including three evidence and two reference samples with Rs7,000 per additional sample, besides proposing charging Rs18,000 for forensic DNA analysis, Rs20,000 for kinship or paternity and Rs2,500 for serological examinations.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2021