Although understaffed, the CID chemical test laboratories have made significant leaps in recent years with the labs being able to clear off all its backlog of pending tests except for a few handful of cases.
The two labs of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) – one in Dhaka and the other in Chittagong – had 995 samples pending in 2010; but as of August this year, the number has been brought down to only eight. Among the pending reports on human viscera and other substances, the Dhaka lab had only one sample left to test, while seven samples from six cases remained pending at the lab in the port city.
The success was achieved despite a severe shortage of manpower at both the labs. Although there were 18 chemical examiner posts of different ranks sanctioned for the labs, only four officials – two deputy chief chemical examiners and two assistant chemical examiners – were currently working for the CID. The top post of chief chemical examiner has been vacant since 2009.
During the first eight months this year, the existing four officials at the two laboratories received a total of 15,394 samples from 7,873 cases; they managed to test almost all the samples except for only eight samples. Manpower shortage also existed among third and fourth-class employees; of the 47 existing posts, 13 remain vacant.
Admitting that case backlog might have existed at the CID labs in the past, Dilip Kumer Saha, deputy chief chemical examiner of the Dhaka laboratory, told the Dhaka Tribune that the trend had changed completely. No report stayed pending at the CID labs now, except for a few sensitive and controversial cases that needed to be re-checked several times to confirm results, he added.
Despite being understaffed, the test reports were prepared in a short time as per the directive of higher authorities in the CID, Dilip said.
He, however, claimed that there still existed a false perception among the general people that they needed to wait months to get a report from the CID lab. It was also untrue that the forensic doctors’ delayed autopsy reports were caused by the delay in preparing CID’s chemical test reports, Dilip claimed.
Sources at the CID chemical lab said between 2009 and 2013, a total of 37,714 samples were tested at the labs. Most of the samples were viscera and different types of drugs, while other samples included semen, blood, and acid.
Meanwhile, despite the successful test rates at the CID labs, the victims and their relatives continue to suffer long waits to get justice, allegedly because of dilly-dallying by doctors who are tasked with preparing autopsy reports for the forensic medicine department of medical colleges and district civil surgeon’s offices.
Most doctors reportedly blamed their own delay on the CID labs, claiming that the labs took a long time to handover the chemical test results.
The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that only five doctors alone from the forensic medicine department of Dhaka Medical College had kept more than 500 autopsy reports pending for many months.
When asked about this, Dr Habibuzzaman, head of the forensic department at the DMC, admitted that many autopsy reports are still pending, but claimed that he had been trying to clear the backlog of those reports.
Claiming that the number of pending reports had previously been 500, but had come down recently, Dr Habibuzzaman said at least four official directives have been issued to ensure that the pending reports were completed.