National Forensic Science Agency (NFSA) is purchasing latest equipment to launch some new testing services from first week of April to enhance capacity of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in criminal detection.
The purchase order for equipment worth Rs 20 million has already been issued and the Agency is now asking the suppliers to expedite the process so that new services could be initiated at the earliest, Project Director of NFSA, Syed Khalid Gardezi said.
He told APP on Monday that examination of ballistic, automated fingerprints identification, questionable documents (fake documents identification), crime scene investigation services, detection and identification of illicit drugs, accelerants used in arson cases, firearms and gunshot residue would be the new addition while the Agency is already providing DNA test service to LEAs.
He said these services would help enhance rule of law through use of modern scientific tools and added three trained persons of the Agency have been attached with Islamabad Police to help crime scene investigation. These three experts are also being provided gadgets for better performance, he added.
Gardezi said Ministry of Interior had initiated the project at Islamabad, which, at the initial stage has conducted more than 1,060 Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) tests. The NFSA, working as an autonomous body, has been receiving biological samples from LEAs across the country, check them and send back DNA results for further proceedings.
Gardezi said the services are provided on the recommendations of law enforcement agencies and courts free of cost. He said latest genetic analysers are being arranged to enable the Agency to handle a large number of cases such as mass disaster and bomb blasts etc.
He said the DNA lab was upgraded under the guidance of forensic experts and presently, it is providing forensic DNA services in the following areas include body identification, parentage analysis, bomb blast and victims of homicide and cross-border terrorism.
The Project Director said staff for the new initiatives has already been hired and is being imparted training in the country and aborad to get better and authentic results.
He said countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and China are supporting the Agency with regard to training of its staff. Gardezi said the Australian government has provided Genetic Analyser Machine (GAM) worth 0.25 million dollars to the NFSA which has helped enhanced forensic capacity.
Moreover, specialised training is also being provided to officers of Agency as part of a forensic biology and DNA course in Australia. He said strategies have been developed to enhance forensic capacity of Pakistani agencies through a series of training courses to be held in Australia, already commencing and continuing until 2013.
Two or three officials will be sent to Australia for training in different forensic fields, he added. He said two analysts are now in the United Kingdom for DNA training while two NFSA officials have already got training in question document from France and are working here successfully.
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