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Journalism of Courage
When the Jammu and Kashmir High Court finally decides on the state governments plea to allow it to refer the Shopian case to the CBI,the first task of the investigators is cut out. The probe into the rape and murder of the two victims cannot begin until the investigators ascertain when and how the slides of the vaginal swabs of the victims were replaced,tampered with or fudged during a 27-day chain of events before they arrived at the Central Forensic Laboratory (CFL).
The first stop for the J&K Polices Special Investigation Team (SIT) is likely to be the Deputy Chief Medical Officers locker,where the slides were kept for a night. Also under question is the role of Srinagars Forensic Science Laboratory,where the samples were kept in a cardboard box for 25 days. Finally,doubts also linger about what transpired at the police headquarters,where for six days two Inspectors General of Police sat on the forensic report suggesting the presence of spermatozoa on the slides.
The bodies of Neelofar,22 and her sister-in-law Asiya,17 were found on May 30. The SIT was set up on June 8 and Superintendent of Police Shahdeen Malik took over the investigation on June 12.
The SIT sent the blood samples of four policemen for DNA profiling to the CFL,New Delhi,on July 22 to check for a match with the DNA profiles of the spermatozoa on the slides of the vaginal swabs of the victims. All this came to naught when it became known that the vaginal swabs did not belong to the victims at all.
If handed the case,the CBI will have to look at all these loopholes:
•If Director,Health (Kashmir) issued orders for a second team of doctors from Pulwama to conduct the post-mortem,why did they leave without basic equipment (cotton,gloves,slides,microscope etc)? Gynecologist Nighat Shaheen told the SIT that a civilian identified as Ashraf volunteered to get slides and managed only two,one of them broken. The SIT has not been able to trace Ashraf to cross-check Nighats statement. The cotton used to take the vaginal swabs is missing.
•Nighat told investigators that she kept the slides in her pocket and handed them over to Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Ghulam Mohammad Paul on their way back to Pulwama. However,Paul told the SIT that he took the slides from Nighat in the office of his deputy,Ghulam Qadir (who is now officiating CMO after Paul retired).
•The SIT found out that the doctors folded a piece of paper to make an envelope for the slides. Paul told the SIT that as his office was shut,he put this envelope in the locker at Deputy CMO Ghulam Qadirs room but took the keys along. The envelope stayed in the locker for the night. As per compulsory standard procedure in a medico-legal case,the slides must either be sealed in the presence of a magistrate or despatched to the FSL.
• The SIT has found that on May 31,Block Medical Officer (BMO) Ghulam Mohammad Bhat,Dr Dalal,Dr Hameed and nursing orderly Mohammad Iqbal took the slides to FSL,Srinagar. At the FSL,they met Head Constable Ghulam Nabi who had come from the Shopian police station carrying the viscera of the victims. The head constable had come a day early,but the FSL officials had refused to accept the viscera without the seal of BMO Bhat. In fact,Bhat sealed and stamped the viscera at FSL itself. The FSL,however,refused to accept the envelope because it did not have the stamp of gynaecologist Nighat. The three doctors and the nursing orderly then took the head constable Ghulam Nabi along to Nighats home. In a breach of procedure,BMO Bhat and his team handed over the envelope carrying the slides to Head Constable Ghulam Nabi. As the FSL had closed,Ghulam Nabi took the viscera and the slides and went to Maharaj Gunj police station. The head constable kept the viscera in the dashboard cabin of a police vehicle parked outside but took the envelope carrying the slides inside the police station where he spent the night.
•The slides were submitted on June 1 and the FSL prepared the report suggesting presence of spermatozoa by the evening. The SIT reveals that on this date,FSL officials immediately contacted the Police Control Room (PCR),Shopian,to ask the Chief Medical Officer to collect the report. But when the PCR contacted CMO Paul,he told them that his office was shut but subsequently deputed Supervisory Pharmacist Hameedullah Magray.
•Magray reached the FSL in Srinagar in the afternoon but was asked to wait by Scientific Officer Javid Iqbal Hafiz,who went to seek permission from the Police Headquarters (PHQ),which has administrative control over the lab. At the PHQ,Hafiz met IGP Ram Lubaya who was officiating as the administrative head of the FSL as IGP Zahoor Chisti was on leave. Lubaya asked Hafiz to delay despatch of the report. Lubaya,however,told The Indian Express that While I was there,only one report (of vaginal swab of one victim) had come. I was waiting for the second report but when it arrived,Chisti sahib too joined back. The PHQ has no role in such matters of the FSL.
•Two days later,IGP Chisti joined back and called the entire FSL team to his office for a meeting and told them not to despatch the report till the return of DGP Kuldeep Khuda who was away in the US. The report was sent after six days.
• According to the SIT,the slides were kept in a cardboard box at FSL in Srinagar until June 25. Finally,Senior Prosecuting Officer Najeeb Nehvi took the slides to CFL.
