CSI: Capital to have its first forensic lab in Polyclinic

Documents complete, facility to be set up in hospital’s current lab.

ISLAMABAD:

Polyclinic Hospital is going to establish the capital’s first forensic laboratory. According to officials, all the documentation has been completed and it will be set up within the existing hospital laboratory.

Talking to The Express Tribune, a senior pathologist at Polyclinic Hospital, who asked not to be named, said work on establishing the new forensic laboratory started two months ago, but was expedited after the need for such a facility was felt during the investigation into the death of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigator Kamran Faisal.

He said the hospital administration wrote a letter to the Islamabad Capital Territory two weeks back requesting the registration of the laboratory, adding that the hospital has utilised its own finances for establishing the facility. It will be run by a team of eight health specialists including technicians, with Polyclinic’s senior pathologist Dr Imtiaz Hasan likely to be in charge of the lab.

He said the current work flow method requires organs to be sent to a forensic laboratory in Lahore for detailed examination. This process is time consuming and due to the travel distance and weather effects, there are chances that the samples are affected and fail to provide accurate data, which can hinder an investigation, he added.

Meanwhile talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Tanveer Malik, a medico-legal officer at Polyclinic Hospital who is also a part of the team working on setting up the forensic lab, said due to the absence of such a facility in Islamabad, several cases were delayed. In contrast, he said a local facility would be able to provide results within a day or two.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2013.