The backlog of pending post-mortem reports has reportedly been growing with time at the forensic medicine department of Dhaka Medical College, with alleged dilly-dallying by several doctors of the department, forcing the families of many victims of unnatural deaths to wait for justice.
Despite requests from courts and police stations, some of the teachers of the department have allegedly failed to prepare and submit autopsy reports to the authorities concerned.
The Dhaka Tribune has learned that during the first two months of this year, more than 100 letters have been sent from different police stations and magistrate courts, asking several doctors to submit pending autopsy reports as soon as possible.
Sources inside the DMC forensic department said among the letters, 56 were sent to Assistant Professor Dr Sohel Mahmud, 12 to Lecturer Dr Md Hussain and three letters to Associate Professor Dr Shafiuzzaman. However, the names of the other doctors who have left autopsy reports pending could not be known.
Since 2012-2013, the number of pending post-mortem reports has stayed above 500, the sources said, adding that new reports keep piling up despite some of the old reports being processed and cleared.
The letters from police stations and magistrate courts mentioned that judgements of many cases, including some sensitive murder cases, were left waiting because of the delay in getting autopsy reports.
The post-mortem reports play a key role in identifying the cause of death in cases such as murder, unnatural death, and suicide.
The delay in preparing the autopsy reports cause sufferings to the victims’ families, as they have to wait for a long time to get proper justice.
There are claims that some teachers of the department engage in the doctoring of autopsy documents in exchange for fees; while there are also allegations that doctors submit new autopsy reports without processing the old pending ones.
During 2012 and 2013, around 5,000 post-mortem examinations were carried out at the forensic medicine department of the DMC; among which 2,547 were carried out in 2012 and 2,351 in 2013.
During January and February this year, 167 and 185 autopsies were done respectively at the DMC.
Senior officials of the forensic medicine department said the workload of the department was high, as doctors had to stay busy teaching students, attending meetings, as well as carrying out post-mortem exams on bodies. It is not possible for the teachers to submit the reports timely, as several bodies are sent to the DMC every day by different police stations of outside districts, they said.
Professor Habibuzzaman Chowdhury, head of the forensic medicine department of the DMC, said he had knowledge that reports have remained pending.