Relief for police : At last, PFSA’s unit gets operational

A decade after its establishment, the authorities have finally decided to make the sample collection unit of the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) operational in the garrison city.

With the collection unit becoming operational, the investigation officers (IOs) of the districts in the Rawalpindi Division will no longer have to travel to Lahore or Gujranwala to submit samples for forensic analysis of the evidence in cases of murder, attempted murder and other heinous crimes.

“The IOs will now submit the samples at the PFSA’s collection point in Rawalpindi. It will be the responsibility of the PFSA’s administration to deliver them to the main laboratory in Lahore,” they said. “However, samples for sensitive tests like DNA and polygraph will have to be directly submitted at the central laboratory in Lahore,” they added.

Regional Police Officer (RPO) Khurram Ali says the operationalisation of the collection unit in Rawalpindi will save the time of the IOs and improve investigation.

“Apart from the Rawalpindi Division, the police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and other law enforcement agencies will be able to benefit from the facility by submitting samples for forensic evidence in important cases at the Rawalpindi collection point,” he said.

The project was approved by the Punjab Assembly and made operational in Lahore in June 2013. A team of experts supervise the analysis of evidence including DNA, polygraph, audio and video analysis, computer forensics, crime and death scene, photographic forensics, firearms and tool marks, fingerprints, pathology, evaluation of handwriting and signatures and documents.

With the establishment of the PFSA, its offices were also opened in all major regions, including Rawalpindi, and regular staff were also appointed.

But the staff and experts stationed at the Rawalpindi office were limited to simply going to the crime scene with the police and collection of evidence under surveillance and handing it over to the respective IO for last decade. After that, it was the responsibility of the IO to go to the PFSA headquarters in Lahore and submit the evidence.

For years, the IOs from Rawalpindi incurred expenses to travel to Lahore to submit samples and bring reports. However, a few years ago, the PFSA’s Gujranwala office was made operational and the IOs of Rawalpindi and surrounding areas were given the facility to submit evidence samples to the collection unit of Gujranwala. After that, the IOs from Rawalpindi, Attock, Chakwal and Jhelum started to go to Lahore and Gujranwala to submit samples.

Lately, RPO Syed Khurram Ali and Punjab’s caretaker Health Minister Dr Jamal Nasir’s attention was drawn to this issue. They were told that despite having the office and staff of the PFSA, the IOs of the Rawalpindi Division had to go to either Lahore or Gujranwala for samples submission and collection which not only wastes their precious time but a large sum of money is also spent on their commute.

At this, Dr Jamal Nasir along with RPO Khurram Ali and CPO Khalid Hamdani visited the PFSA’s regional office and instructed the RPO to send recommendations to make it operational.

Later, by implementing the decision within a few weeks, all facilities were provided to the PFSA’s regional office in Rawalpindi to start the work of submitting evidence samples.

When contacted, RPO Khurram Ali told The Express Tribune that “the IOs of all the districts of the Rawalpindi region can now submit the evidence samples of the cases from Monday [today] in the PFSA’s collection unit in Rawalpindi instead of going to Lahore or Gujranwala.”

The RPO further said that not only the Rawalpindi region but also the police and other LEAs of Azad Kashmir, K-P and G-B will be able to avail the facility with activation of the sample collection unit.

IOs satisfied

The IOs of Rawalpindi police have expressed their contentment over the development.

One IOs, on condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that he had to go to Lahore to submit evidence samples for any case, and if he had to go to Lahore and stay there for any reason, he had to pay for all the expenses out of his pocket. “In such cases, Rs10,000 to Rs15,000 had to be spent and time wasted,” he said.

Another IO said: “To submit evidence samples from faraway places in Lahore and Gujranwala and to avoid travel difficulties and expenses, often police employees did not register drug cases because they had to travel to Gujranwala or Lahore repeatedly to submit and collect samples, but now when the same facility will be available in Rawalpindi, the operations against narcotics will speed up.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2023.