Vadakkenchery case: Police provided too little blood sample of bus driver for lab test

The source also confirmed that the police didn’t hand over the driver’s urine sample.
Express Illustrations.
Express Illustrations.

KOCHI: While the horrific bus accident at Vadakkenchery, in which nine people were killed, including five students and a teacher of Baselios Vidyanikethan Senior Secondary School, Mulanthuruthy, left many in utter shock, it seems it had no “emotional impact” on the police.

The police, who failed to detain tourist bus driver Jomon Pathrose immediately, also showed huge negligence in the collection of his blood sample when he was taken into custody from Kollam nearly 22 hours after the incident. It has now been revealed that the police committed procedural lapses by submitting only one millilitre of the driver’s blood sample to the Regional Chemical Examiner’s Laboratory in Kakkanad, where it was tested to determine whether he was driving under the influence of alcohol.

“In normal cases, they provide nearly 5-6ml of blood samples to the laboratory so that the analyst can perform the drug test easily. However, in the case of Jomon, they only handed over 1ml of blood in an unusual step. Though the lab is equipped with the facility to carry out tests using a small quantity, the police should have been more conscious,” said a source with the laboratory.

The source also confirmed that the police didn’t hand over the driver’s urine sample. “In such cases, the urine sample is necessary. Though it was a sensational and terrifying incident, the police adopted a callous attitude,” said the source, requesting anonymity. Though TNIE tried to contact the regional chemical examiner, the officer was unavailable for comments.

It was on Thursday the blood sample report of Jomon came out. The report says that the blood sample didn’t show the presence of alcohol. “If the blood and urine samples were taken within a few hours, the tests would have detected the presence of alcohol. The alcohol usually stays in the blood for only 12 hours,” the source added. On October 5, the bus driven by Jomon carrying 42 schoolchildren on a tour to Ooty collided with a KSRTC bus.

Meanwhile, a top police officer refuted the allegations. “The police have put all their efforts into providing justice to the nine people killed. It is true that we failed to detain the driver immediately. Most of the personnel on the scene were focused more on the rescue operation,” the officer said.

AID IN PHASES
In the initial phase, counselling will be provided to the students jointly by the District Legal Services Authority and Mythri Foundation. Legal aid will be provided to all students and relatives of the deceased in the next stage

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