Holding a press conference on Saturday, they highlighted delays and mix-ups in the process, demanding that the government look into the matter.
Arif Iqbal, whose wife and children were killed in the crash, accused the authorities of corruption. “I provided my DNA sample and expected the result in a few hours, but five days later, I still had nothing,” he said.
“This is a great business where samples and bodies are spoiled, and bodies are sold for money,” he alleged, asking other families to resend their samples to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) for correct identification and pointing out that SFDL reports had not been given to them.
Another person also made similar allegations and said that the SFDL misidentified the bodies of their loved ones. He said unlike PFSA, SFDL failed to give results in time.
Meanwhile, International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences director Dr Iqbal Choudhary said in a meeting at the SFDL on Saturday that the laboratory had employed all international quality standards while carrying out the forensic DNA analysis, adding that sampling, coding, tagging and handing over bodies to the families was the responsibility of the medico-legal department.
He claimed that efforts were being made to undermine the SFDL.
Meanwhile, SFDL in-charge Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed pointed to ‘unnecessary interference’ by PFSA, saying their team visited the sample receiving unit a day after the incident and demanded the samples and case records be handed over to them, without any authorising documents.
