Chandigarh: National webinar on forensic investigation in crime against women, children held

THE ADVANCE Forensics DNA Centre at CFSL, Sector 36, organised a national-level webinar on Friday on the issue of investigation of crime against women and children and forensic examination of sexual assault and POCSO cases. Around 350 people related to four fields — judiciary, police, medical and forensic sciences — participated in the webinar, which lasted for more than six hours on Friday. The entire event was supervised by Dr Sanjay Kumar Jain, chief forensic scientist, and Dr Ikramul Haque, director of CFSL-36.

During Friday’s webinar, ASP Shruti Arora highlighted the role of forensic science in investigation of crime against women and children. In his inaugural speech, chief forensic scientist, Dr Sanjay Kumar Jain, urged all participants, especially the police personnel, to never overlook the forensic aspects during investigations of sexual assault cases. Dr Rashmi Bagga, a senior gynacologist and obstritician from PGIMER, spoke on the evidence sample collection from sexual assault and POCSO victims, with special reference to abortion cases.

The webinar was divided into many sessions — like intricacies of forensic examination of sexual assault & POCSO cases, evidence sample collection from sexual assault & POCSO victims with special reference to abortion cases, maintaining confidentiality of the survivors of sexual assault, as per the Supreme Court decisions, current scenario and challenges of forensic examination of sexual assault & POCSO cases, amendment in Indian penal Code (IPC) status quo sexual assault.