Kerala - Kannur   

Seminar focusses on autopsy test, chemico-legal rules

Staff Reporter

KANNUR: A range of forensic-related subjects, including DNA finger printing, autopsy test and chemico-legal rules, were discussed at a seminar on `Forensic Science' organised by the service delivery project of the police under the Modernising Government Programme (MGP).

Kannur Range Deputy Inspector General S. Ananthakrishnan, who delivered the keynote address, said that police personnel should be equipped with information on the latest developments in forensic science.

Forensic medicine was only a part of the larger world of forensic science, he said.

Principal of Pariyaram Medical College and police surgeon N. Gopalakrishna Pillai said weapons used in murder cases were crucial for a police surgeon to arrive at correct findings.

He urged police officers to show the weapons to the police surgeon so that s/he could examine whether the size of the weapon matched the depth of the wound on the victim's body.

In cases of deaths of patients in hospitals owing to the alleged negligence of doctors, there was a tendency among the authorities to change case-sheets before the police arrived, Dr. Pillai said.

He pointed out that proper autopsy could bring out the truth regarding the cause of death in such cases.

Changing case-sheets would only harm the doctor under investigation when the findings during a post-mortem examination were at variance with the case-sheet, he said.

He said the district-level panel comprising the District Medical Officer, the Public Prosecutor and the Police Surgeon, which had to meet within 16 days after a complaint of negligence was reported, had not met for months owing to inconvenience.

Dr. Pillai said DNA finger printing was not common in the region. Any samples from the body that contained nucleus could be taken for DNA finger printing, he said.

He also said decapitation was possible in cases of suicide by hanging.

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