KARACHI, Nov 1 Ineffective legislation and police investigators lacklustre approach often force people to forgo medico-legal formalities, including autopsy of the victims of accidents or fatal attack etc.

Senior officials and sources at the major public health facilities such as the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) asserted that it is procedural liability of these hospitals to inform the police immediately upon receiving a body. “But in several cases, it is observed that the heirs of those who die under suspicious circumstances do not agree to let the hospitals perform an autopsy,” said a CHK official. “And most of such families manage to take away the bodies without meeting the medico-legal formalities, simply by convincing police personnel not to insist,” he added.

According to him, the medico-legal section is supposed to conduct an autopsy only when requested by the police. Such a request means a complete examination of the body under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

“In such a situation, the medico-legal officers cannot be blamed for avoiding an autopsy of the body not tagged with a police request,” he argued, maintaining that convincing relatives of a deceased to agree on autopsy was not the responsibility of hospital officials.

Police investigators agree that many people tend to avoid the medico-legal formalities. But, the police do force them to fulfil the mandatory requirement, they assert.

A lack of coordination between these hospitals' medico-legal sections and the police department is also to blame for the situation.

“In the investigations into murder cases, autopsy of the deceased essentially helps resolve the case,” said SSP Investigation (East-I) Niaz Ahmed Khosa. “Investigations of such cases mainly rely on the findings of the autopsy report and partially on other kind of evidence. So if we don't have an autopsy report in hand, speculation and guesswork distract the probe and the findings are not reliable.”

However, he agrees, it is almost impossible to act in accordance with the rules in those cases where the deceased died under suspicious circumstances and the heirs do not allow the police to complete medico-legal formalities.

“We keep coming across such a situation and unfortunately there seems to be no way out. All that the police can do is only to convince them but such attempts rarely succeed,” he added.

A JPMC official cited an example where three persons of the same family died in a recent road accident but the victims' relatives took away the bodies without an autopsy. “A large number of people, most of them family members of the victims who had gathered in the hospital managed to take away the bodies without completing the legal formalities. Apart from certain other problems, avoiding a confrontation in such cases has always been an issue,” he added.

It is witnessed in most such cases that the police agree to let the bereaved take away a victim's body after signing a document declaring that they were doing so because they do not want a post-mortem examination to be conducted, says the official, pointing out that the police investigators who fail to undertake legal formalities absolve themselves of the responsibility by arguing that they cannot force the shocked heirs or relatives of a victim to meet legal formalities.

Another flaw in the system, according to a CHK official, is the absence of police officials from the medico-legal section of an authorised hospital. “It is essential for the police personnel posted at the medico-legal section of a hospital to ensure presence of those on duty. This is important both for prompt completion of medico-legal formalities and security,” he said.

The official said that a proposal in this regard had been discussed several a time by the high-ups but there had been no progress so far.