Maliwal calls on to improve forensic facility

In order to ensure proper and speedy investigation of rape cases, Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal asserted the need to improve forensic facility in the city. She said the city has only one forensic lab at Rohini, which is under the Delhi government.

Maliwal said from January-October  2015, over 7,000 cases of rape came to the forensic lab, of which 1,479 are pending since 2011, and hence, of no use. 

Maliwal said the number of rape cases is on the rise, but in many instances charge-sheets are not filed, thereby leading to low conviction rate. A state-of-the-art forensic facility is the need of the hour so that the samples can be matched accurately and timely.

Maliwal said that she has already had a word in this regard with the Home Secretary, who has assured her that  a mechanism is being worked out, where a report would be prepared in 30 days and the previous cases would be solved in 8 months.

Based on the information provided by the DCW, there are over 7,000 cases that are pending before the FSL that deals with testing bio-forensic , DNA, documentary, chemical and computer forensic unit samples, under which apart from documentary evidence all samples have validity for a year. Over 2,169 samples are in the lab since 2014, besides 1,479 are redundant as they are there in the lab since 2011.

Maliwal pointed out that most of the samples belong to minors, and hence, importance as their perpetrators need to be punished.

The DCW chief said cases that garnered media attention went into better equipped forensic labs at AIIMS and Safdarjung hospital. She added that many cases coming to Rohini FSL were not being efficiently dealt with.