AMU CMO alleges Hathras rape case FSL report unreliable, samples taken after 11 days: Report

The Chief Medical Officer of Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU’s) Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, where the 19-year-old Hathras victim was admitted for two weeks, said that the FSL report — which Uttar Pradesh Police has relied on to say she was not raped holds no value.

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In a statement to The Indian Express, the CMO, Dr Azeem Malik , said, "The samples were collected 11 days after the woman was allegedly raped, while government guidelines strictly say forensic evidence can only be found up to 96 hours after the incident. This report can’t confirm rape in this incident"

According to the report, samples were received by the Forensic Science Laboratory on September 25 – 11 days after the alleged attack on Spetember 14.

The 19-year-old who was alleged assaulted by four upper caste men was able to provide the details of the alleged sexual assault only after she regained consciousness at the AMU hospital on September 22, the report cited.

Dr Hamza Malik, president of the Resident Doctors’ Association at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, also termed the FSL report “unreliable”.

“How will the FSL team find evidence of rape 11 days later? Sperm doesn’t survive after 2-3 days. They took samples from hair, clothes, nail bed and vaginal-anal orifice; the samples may not show presence of semen because of urination, defecation and menstruation," he told the publication.

UP’s Additional Director General (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar had on Thursday said that the forensic examination on the woman did not indicate rape. "The report of the FSL has also come. It says clearly that samples did not contain sperm. It makes clear that there was no rape or gang-rape," Kumar had said on Thursday in Lucknow.

But legal experts debunked the theory, saying that the presence of sperm on the victim’s body cannot be an essential ingredient to prove the crime.

(With agency inputs)