KOLKATA: A day after a major faux pas by the Kolkata Police and administration which first claimed 14 human fetuses were recovered from a south Kolkata plot and later claimed that they were just medical waste, forensic tests conducted on the materials confirmed that they were baby diapers.
"After forensic test, we did not find any human tissues or fragmentation in the materials. The materials in the packets are only diapers. Due to prolonged exposure to rains and sunlight, some colouration was found in the packets, which we are examining," said forensic expert Wasim Raja.
However, questions are being raised in several quarters that if the packets contained only diapers why were they packed in separate packets and dumped in the centre of an empty plot. Police are yet to offer any explanations as to why the matter of finding 'fetuses' were blown out of proportions even before examining the materials.
The role of deputy commissioner (southwest) Nilanjan Biswas is being questioned as to why he told the media in a hurriedly convened press conference at around 6.30 pm on Sunday that the materials in the packets seemed fetuses prima facie but backtracked just an hour later.
Locals said that the misinformation might have started from the labourers who thought the packets looked like fetuses and passed the information to Haridevpur police who passed the same information to their higher-ups without opening the packets or examining them.
Though the packets were found at around 12.30 pm, they were opened by doctors of M R Bangur Hospital at around 7 pm, a good six and half hours later. But, even before opening the packets, Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and police commissioner Rajiv Kumar visited the area and confirmed that the materials were fetuses, merely on the basis of speculations and hearsay.
The incident has been a major embarrassment for the Kolkata Police, once compared with the Scotland Yard, and also raised suspicions whether the police was trying to cover up anything.