Narcoanalysis: ‘Srikumar Saved Karnataka from Big Shame’

Narcoanalysis: ‘Srikumar Saved Karnataka from Big Shame’
“The Former Karnataka Chief of Police Sri R. Srikumar had indeed saved not only Karnataka from the big shame brought by narcoanalysis gang, but took the bold step to save the honour of the nation” said Prof P. Chandra Sekharan who has been constantly crusading against narcoanalysis used by Indian Police. He said “hitherto I was attacking the narcoanalysis as fake and illegal, but I never realised the analysts themselves will be fakes”
Prof Chandra Sekharan recalled his long association with the Karnataka police who had always sought his expertise for their cases when he was heading the Forensic Sciences Department Tamil Nadu and even after his retirement. He also fondly recollected how the former Chief Minister Mr Veerappa Moily invited him to establish a National Institute of Forensic Sciences at Bangalore by making a generous offer of five crores of seed money and five acres of land.
Prof Sekharan said he was shocked when the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) of the Karnataka Police Dr B M Mohan announced that his lab had begun full-fledged use of new technologies (?) like truth serum tests and brain mapping or P-300 tests in 2002 at the Bangalore Science Forum- a non forensic gathering. The then Commissioner of Police even went to the extent of declaring that the new techniques were developed by Dr. Malini in FSL. Prof Sekharan said that knowing Dr Mohan personally for many years, he had advised him during the National Symposium held at Hyderabad on March 27, 2004 both academically and personally about the misgivings of narcoanalysis and brain fingerprinting. But Mohan went on to claim the rare distinction of a 95 per cent success rate in his narcoanalysis investigations”.
This is the biggest hoax he played to dupe the media and he cannot take the scientific community for granted. How does one estimate success rate and in what instances and in what terms of output it is counted? Say, in a hospital, 98 out of 100 operations are successful; the success rate is counted as 98%. In FSL, if 70 out of the 100 reports, based on time proven tests in ballistics, chemistry, toxicology, biology and physics, are considered by courts for arriving at conclusion, success rate will be 70% and that too can be counted only after judgements are pronounced.
Prof Sekharan declared “Narcoanalysis is not the ‘cup of tea’ for forensic scientists. It is an invading medical procedure thrown out even by medicos all over the world when medical ethics prevented them from conducting such tests. The two Bangalore non-medicos Malini and Mohan have actually faked [stolen] the medical procedure and were illegally practising it on human beings with the connivance of Police and Dr.M.S.Rao who released under the banner of MHA ‘manuals of procedure’ in support of the fake tests”. One more FSL wanted to compete with Malini. But few takers since theirs were not as good as the Bangalore brew.
Even the huge grant-in-aid procured by Drs Mohan and Malini from the Department of Information Technology, Government of India could make them publish a single research paper though it enabled them to travel far and wide spreading word about their new (stolen?) methodologies among police officers at conferences and seminars, claiming mastery unparalleled by other labs using the same techniques. Thus without validating the success rates of the techniques through scientific methods or by publishing papers on the subject, it is absurd to claim success rates.
The input for their narcoanalysis is ‘police story’. Output is Malini’s story based on ‘UMMS’ and ‘AMMS’ blurted out by the subjects said to be under trance. Then is the success rate counted on the production and sale of narco-CDs? Does it not amount to something like the burglar claiming success rates of his burglaries?
Malini should have been content with the lie-detector work for which she was employed. But the narcissism in her and her boss raved for amendment of the rules to make the narcotest as substantive evidence while it is not even considered as opinion evidence by courts of law. This is the immediate cause of her fall. Had not Mr. S. T. Ramesh IPS, the Additional Director General of police and Controlling Officer of FSL brought to the notice of Mr. Srikumar Malini’s malfeasance of forging her age certificate and claiming nonexistent qualifications and experience, perhaps, she could have succeeded in getting the rules amended by the Government of Karnataka and also in establishing narco centres and brain mapping labs in all nooks and corners of the State!
Malini had indeed such a ‘spell’ over the Police, Government and even judiciary. The Karnataka High Court Bench summoned the Chief Secretary to the Government of Karnataka and directed him to regularise immediately her contract appointment. Chief Secretary gave an undertaking to that effect, but could not do it, thanks to Supreme Court’s ruling that contract appointees cannot be regularised. But C&R rules were bent and corrupted, special rules made, special Committee of DGP, ADGP, CAO & Mohan formed; Malini, the only candidate was interviewed selected and appointed. Malini has gone now. But even now she has access to all confidential files of the government including the noting of the Ministers in her discharge file since she is able to submit copies of the same to KAT in her recent petition.
The questions more or less on the following tenor are posed by media: “What will happen to over 400 applications by investigation agencies from various corners of the country that are pending before Bangalore FSL?” One TV channel posed a bigger question “Who the ultimate loser is?” And the channel itself gave an answer “The police forces of many states that relied on the lab for data and of course the common man are the losers”. My answers are:
“Yes! The police were the losers during the last few years after they fell to the “spell” of Malini. Police have lost their skill of investigation. That dark period is over. Police will wake up now and proceed with their sustained interrogation which they have been adopting all these years before Malini’s advent”.
“The ultimate losers will of course be the TV Channels because they cannot telecast any new ‘horror shows’ as they won’t get any new Narco CDs enacted and directed by the pseudo scientists. The common man will also be deprived of seeing ‘Modi Masthan Magic-Shows’ in TV Channels. But old Narco CDs procured from Malini will still be available with the Channels and the ‘common man’ will indeed be privileged to see them time and again”.
Professor Chandra Sekharan asserted that the narcoanalysis camouflaged and offered in a four- in- one package is nothing more than the magic of Modi Masthan of yester years. Masthan is the common name by which the wayside magician is known. He will also offer a four-in-one package show; i) snake charming; ii) mango sapling trick in which he will bury a mango seed and cover it with a basket to open it after a few minutes exhibiting a sapling with two mangoes; iii) hypnotise a person from the crowd and make him answer questions about a select few in the crowd; iv) sale of talisman.
Earlier Prof Sekharan dubbed narcoanalysis and brain fingerprinting as Potemkin Science.