Viscera results come at a ‘price’

On May 30, 2017, Arunachalam Ilayaraja (31), an Infosys employee from Tindivanam, was found dead at his office dormitory in Mahindra Tech City. Police are still clueless about the cause of his death. The reason: post mortem report was delayed due to pending viscera tests results. 

All major hospital morgues in the city have a long list of medico-legal cases that have not gone beyond the post-mortem stage due to the delay in getting the viscera test results. A viscera test is a forensic examination of internal organs of a deceased person such as the heart, lungs, liver pancreas and intestines to establish the cause of death. 

While the police claim that the state forensic labs take several months to do viscera tests, forensic experts point out that most viscera tests need just 48 hours depending on the kind of sample submitted.  

“The actual duration required for viscera samples to yield results is less than a week,” said Dr P Sampath Kumar, a city-based senior forensic expert. Delays and deals: So, what causes the delay? While staff at the main laboratory of the TN Forensic Sciences department blame it on manpower shortage and other factors, sources in the forensic department of government hospitals blame the police. 

Sources say that several murky, underhand deals take place between the kin of the deceased and the police and only after they reach an agreement are the samples sent for post-mortem. 

“This is especially true in accident cases as an adverse post-mortem report such as alcohol traces in viscera tests could ensure that insurance is denied,” a government forensic surgeon said on condition of anonymity. In one instance, he said the wife of a 36-yearold mechanic who died in a road accident was asked to pay a bribe for the report, failing which they threatened to  add alcohol in the preservative that was preserving his liver, which would alter the post-mortem results. 

When asked about the delay in techie Arunachalam’s case, Inspector Kalaiselvan (Special Branch) said that there was no delay in sending the viscera samples of Arunachalam. “Soon after the post-mortem, we sent the samples to the forensic lab and we are awaiting the result.” he said.