No forensic test yet on J Dey murder weapon

The revolver that police claim was used to kill Mid-Day journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, is yet to be sent for forensic testing.

The revolver that police claim was used to kill Mid-Day journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, is yet to be sent for forensic testing.

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The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), with the help of a technology called Ballistic Fingerprinting (see box), can match the bullets fired on Dey at Mumbai’s Povai suburb on June 11 with the US-made .32 bore revolver in question.

The result of the test can prove beyond doubt whether the same revolver was used to fire on Dey. If the report is positive, it will also help police build a strong case against the accused in the court of law.

The Mumbai police has sent three exhibits to FSL till date — two bullets, the shirt worn by Dey with bullet holes, and blood-soaked earth samples from the crime spot.

“The police had initially sent us two bullets — one lodged in Dey’s body and the other found on the crime scene in Powai — for testing,” said an official from FSL, requesting anonymity.

“Based on our tests, we informed the police that a .32 bore weapon had been used. We have, however, not received the actual .32 bore revolver that the police claim was used in the firing as yet,” he added.

The police said the accused Rohit Thangappan Joseph, alias Satish Kalya, had gone to Dehradun to get the revolver and 25 Czech-made rounds that were to be used in the attack.

Meanwhile, police have begun their next phase of investigation to track down the conduit/s who passed on the vital personal details of the scribe to fugitive don Chhota Rajan, or some “top” operative of his in the city, which made the task of the hit easy.

Tracing the weapon

It refers to a set of forensic techniques that rely on marks that firearms leave on bullets to match a bullet to the gun it was fired from. A bullet is fired from the firearm — which needs to be checked — and the mark left on this bullet is tallied with the bullet from the crime scene.

It is based on the principle that all firearms have inevitable variations due to marks left by the machining process, leaving shallow impressions in the metal which are rarely completely polished out.