CHENNAI: In a breach of protocol that exposes glaring loopholes in state forensic systems, officials attempted to defraud the very institution designed to detect deception - the premier Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL).
A letter from the Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (IFMT) in Madras Medical College, operating under the Health Department, authorised an 11-member cohort for a prestigious three-week training (Jan 19 to Feb 6) at the FSL, which falls under the Home Ministry.
The document explicitly created the impression that all trainees were government postgraduate students from IFMT, as per strict rules that bar participants from private institutes.
However, in a stunning twist, senior FSL professors discovered a massive fraud in progress. Of the 11 trainees, only three were legitimate government postgraduate doctors. Eight were illegally funnelled in from private medical colleges, blatantly violating norms.
The development exposed a dangerous attempt to infiltrate and compromise a secure forensic establishment.
The deception unravelled mid-training, forcing FSL authorities to immediately expel the eight unauthorised individuals. The lab, the state's ultimate arbiter of factual evidence in crimes, found itself victimised by a calculated fraud from within a sister government department.
"It is profoundly shocking that a Health Department official attempted to cheat the FSL," a high-level source revealed.
"The lab created to uncover all truths through forensic auditing was itself taken for a ride. This points to a deep-seated malaise and raises serious questions about integrity and potential ulterior motives."
"When FSL received the letter for the request from IFMT, the officials there thought all the 11 doctors were from IFMT. The letter even referred to all 11 students as 'our students' to create that impression. Only during training, while interacting with the students, they came to know that the majority were from private colleges," sources disclosed.