Case probes delayed by huge backlog

Though the Mumbai FSL helped arrest one of the accused in the 2010 rape and murder of three minor girls at Nehru Nagar, it has “not been of much help” in tracking down the second accused, police say.

Though the Mumbai FSL helped arrest one of the accused in the 2010 rape and murder of three minor girls at Nehru Nagar, it has “not been of much help” in tracking down the second accused, police say.

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It was the Mumbai FSL that ran DNA tests on traces found at three crime scenes at Nehru Nagar and pointed out that there were two persons involved in the crimes (see box). After testing samples taken from locals, the FSL told the police about the involvement of 19-year-old Javed Shaikh in one of the cases. Shaikh is now awaiting trial.

“Since then, we have sent several samples to the FSL to track down the second accused, but it’s taking them a lot of time to send us results. The killer could have left the city by the time we get results,” said an officer investigating the Nehru Nagar cases, requesting anonymity.

“When we write to them to speed up the process, they complain they complain about lack of chemicals [used to conduct DNA tests],” the officer added.

An FSL official said, “While another laboratory equipped to handle DNA tests should help, the cost factor also kicks in. In certain cases, such as the Nehru Nagar murders, instead of sending limited DNA samples of suspects to match with the accused, they have sent us around 1,000 samples. We have explained to them that it is not economically feasible to conduct so many tests. We first conduct DNA tests on more urgent cases.”

When asked if quicker test results would help their investigations, Mumbai police spokesperson DCP Nisar Tamboli said, “If we can get the DNA test results faster, it will help speed up the process of investigation. It will help investigations in a big way if we get the DNA report during the investigation process.”