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Friday, May 20, 2005

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National

Windshield damage: no definite conclusion

Manas Dasgupta

Forensic Science Laboratory says glass pieces given by the police are too small

VADODARA: The Forensic Science Laboratory, Gandhinagar, has failed to come to a definite conclusion on the breaking of the rear windshield of the private taxi used by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad during his visit to the SSG Hospital here on April 21.

The FSL submitted its final report to the Vadodara police, who were investigating the case following Mr. Prasad's allegations of a "murderous attack" on him by Sangh Parivar activists "at the behest of" Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.The FSL, in its interim report submitted earlier, based on video footage and field investigations, said the windshield was not broken on the hospital premises. It was found intact in the video clippings of the car leaving the hospital for the Vadodara airport.

The interim report said there was no stone throwing on the hospital premises as was alleged by Mr. Prasad, though some water pouches were hurled at the vehicle. The report disagreed that the windshield could have been damaged with water pouches. The car was sent to the FSL about a week after the incident, and that too after the owner had got it repaired in a Vadodara garage. The police collected pieces of the damaged windshield from the garage.

During the "field investigations" the FSL experts could not recover any piece of the windshield even after scanning every inch of the hospital premises up to the gate.

According to Police Commissioner Deepak Swaroop, the FSL in its final report pointed out that the pieces of the windshield submitted by the police were "microscopic small" and an opinion on how it was damaged could not be formed. Many pieces were missing and it was difficult to reconstruct the damaged glass to come to any conclusion.

Mr. Swaroop disagreed that the final report contradicted the interim report. He said that neither in the final report nor earlier did the FSL give any hint of an attack on Mr. Prasad's car on the hospital premises. It, however, was not known whether anything happened between the hospital and the airport but Mr. Prasad did not report any attack on the last leg of his journey.

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