PESHAWAR, April 30: Working with outdated equipment acquired in 1978, the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) of the Police Department is likely to soon face severe problems, as most of its technical experts are set to retire within next two years, sources say.

“Though workload has risen manifolds over the years, no new technical experts have been recruited in the FSL since 1980s except transferring some non-technical staff from police,” they said.

Established in 1978, the FSL carry out chemical examinations of the stuff for all police stations of the province and the tribal agencies to provide scientific proof in crime cases to the courts.

The workload of the FSL has risen from 2,000 chemical examination cases in 1980 to 56,000 in 2004 and 65,000 sample testing in 2010, but the laboratory is still working with 80 employees, most of them recruited at the inception of the laboratory, said the sources.

Shifting of the FSL office from Chowki No 2 to Hayatabad Township three months ago has caused it another blow as the dark room, strong room and examination rooms at the new place were not purpose-built, thus putting the staffers' health at risk, they said.

The sources said that after retirement of the aging staff the FSL would face severe problems to find trained chemical examiners, finger-print and handwriting experts and other technical people.

They said that policemen bringing samples for analysis undergo hard treatment at the FSL as the official visitors were denied entry into the office.

Confronted with heavy workload, the Forensic Science Laboratory staffers often rush through examinations which didn't satisfy the courts, the sources said and added the courts had oftentimes expressed concern over the poor or incomplete examination of the samples.

They said that the matter to strengthen the Forensic Science Laboratory was discussed in the provincial assembly in February 2006 and it was stressed to provide necessary funds, equipment and trained staff to the laboratory to improve its efficiency, but no steps were taken in this direction.

In this light, the director FSL wrote to the additional inspector general of police a week later, stating that the staff had been working in the same grades in which they were hired decades ago while those transferred from police department had been getting regular promotions and suggested a promotion formula for the FSL staff.

The letter had also explained that most of the senior staff inducted in 70s would retire over next few years and suggested that the staff strength of the FSL be increased on priority.

It further suggested that fresh science graduates be inducted immediately so that they might get on-job training and experience and be ready to fill up the gap in different fields of forensic sciences.

When contacted, Director FSL Mohammad Ayub told this correspondent that they had to ensure in the available resources and staff that the results of samples were up to the mark and finalized without delay.

He said that denying entry to police officials was part of the security plan.