Hyderabad: Negligence and lack of awareness among forensic doctors in tertiary hospitals in the city and medical staff in districts in TS and AP while collecting vaginal swabs in rape cases are resulting in the cases ending up as “no opinion” in Telangana State Forensic Science Laboratory. Telangana State Forensic Laboratory DNA Expert Dr G. Pandu said, “We get samples in rape and murder cases from both the states. Due to lack of awareness the medical staffs assisted by police does not dry the swabs with the drier and place them wet in the swab collector. Due to this it develops fungus by that time the sample reaches DNA lab in forensic department.
When fungus grow in it is almost impossible to do the tests on it to find what kind of cells it has,” DNA experts gives no opinion in such cases and in absence of other evidence these rape cases end up in acquittal due to which the rape accused go scot-free. Dr G. Pandu said ,”In murder cases the doctors keep the bone or body parts in formalin solution. This results in spoiling of the tissues and it is difficult to extract DNA from it,” He added significance number of cases end up without proper extraction of DNA due to fungal growth in vaginal swab containers and as well as from the bones and tissues in formalin solution.
