Semmaram Encounter Killings Fact Finding Report2

Tamil Research Institution (TRI)
1.4. Members of the police party engaged in the action shall not touch any material
evidence, including weapons used against them, with their bare hands. If it becomes
essential to handle any object or body at the site, they shall either use gloves, or in their
absence, handkerchiefs or pieces of cloth to cover their hands.
1.5. Bodies of persons who have died in the action [police as well as citizens] will be moved
with the utmost care, ideally in body bags and in the presence and under the supervision of
forensic experts. When such experts in forensic medicine are not immediately available, they
shall be replaced by the nearest available medical officer of a Government hospital and
great care must be taken to ensure that no evidence is lost or contaminated in the process of
shifting the deceased from the venue of the police action.
1.6. Particular care must be taken to ensure that the hands of the deceased persons and of
those injured, are covered with clean cloth, to preserve evidence of gunshot residue through
a mandatory dermal nitrate test for gun power residues.
2.0: SITE OF THE ENCOUNTER: DUTIES OF POLICE / SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
TEAMS
2.1. Other policemen, including forensic experts][medicine and science], who are not
belonging to the police party that was engaged in the police action and not under the same
senior officer who led the action will take over the site at the earliest from their colleagues
who were involved in the ‘police action’. They will carry equipment essential for the gathering
of evidence, and ensure it is collected, recorded and despatched securely and quickly
following all precautions to ensure no evidence is lost. .
2.
2.2. The forensic experts, or in their absence, the senior police officer now in charge of the
investigation, will:
2.2.1. be assisted by an assistant to undertake a continuous videotape, with sound
recording, which will detail what they see, find, recover, store and despatch from the place of
action; if such finding, recovery etc is in different places, care shall be taken to ensure that in
each of the places the videography is carefully and skilfully carried out to ensure that all
national and international standards and guidelines are adhered to.
2.2.2. ensure that all samples taken are immediately stored in sterile packaging, clearly
labelled;
2.2.3. take samples on sterile swabs from the hands and fingers of the dead men to be
tested in a forensic laboratory for the presence of gunshot residue and conducting
the dermal nitrate test ;
2.2.4. lift fingerprints from all objects recovered from the bodies, including weapons and
mobile phones;
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