The Hindu : Front Page : Police case bowled out by forensic report

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Wednesday, Nov 04, 2009
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Police case bowled out by forensic report

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Bangalore police will close the case against Pervez Rasool, member of the under-22 Jammu and Kashmir cricket team, following a Forensic Science Laboratory’s (FSL) report that his kitbag did not contain any explosives residue.

“The case will be closed on the ground that it is a mistake of fact,” said Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar M. Bidari.

A much-touted long range explosives detector installed by a Hyderabad-based security agency had wrongly signalled the presence of explosives in Mr. Rasool’s room at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on October 17.

The young player, part of a 15-member team that had arrived to participate in the C.K. Nayudu Cricket Tournament, was arrested, triggering a controversy, and his kitbag sent to the FSL for testing.

In his report, FSL Assistant Director (Chemistry Division) P.R. Jayaramu discounted any explosives residue and said that the detector sensed the presence of a plasticizer called diisooctyl phthalate in the bag. “The plasticizer is widely used to make soft and flexible PVC for various applications,” he said. He mentioned that C4 type of explosives is prepared by mixing a small amount of plasticizer with RDX. The detector showed positive signal for the C4 explosive. “If the residues were of the C4 type of explosive, then both the RDX and the plasticizer would be present,” he said.

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