Uttar Pradesh gets DNA lab, lie-detector

LUCKNOW - Uttar Pradesh’s first DNA laboratory with an additional lie-detector facility is coming up here.

Set up on the premises of the existing forensic science laboratory, the new facilities would become operational by the end of March, Inspector General of Police (Technical Services) R.N. Singh told IANS Tuesday.

Till now, DNA samples have to be sent to Hyderabad, which has the country’s only DNA laboratory so far.

“Besides signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Hyderabad laboratory, we have also sought the services of some retired scientists from there and they were training our personnel to carry out DNA tests,” pointed out Singh, who had already started receiving queries from several North Indian states keen on referring their cases to Lucknow.

As the new lab would also carry out tests for private individuals and organisations, a team of experts has been detailed to prescribe the fee for different investigations.

Singh said: “The equipment installed here is a DNA analyser, DNA sequencing, genotyping and genetic identification.”

He added: “Currently, we are getting our personnel trained to carry out the polygraph lie-detector test under experts at the Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences here.”

Singh pointed out that “the new facilities would go a long way to work out cases that hang fire largely on account of the failure of policemen to extract truth out of hardened criminals.”

So far, Uttar Pradesh police had to refer all investigations relating to brain-mapping to laboratories in Chandigarh, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai.