Scientist calls for DNAdatabase

Prof. Ranajit Chakraborty, a top global forensic scientist who helped in confirming Osama bin Laden’s identity a day before the news of his execution was out, stressed on the need for a national DNA database in India.

Prof. Chakraborty said that that it was high time India developed its own DNA database for fighting crime. He said that 58 countries in the world including China have established DNA databases. The Chinese database was established in 2000 and has around 6.9 million DNA profiles.

Prof. Chakraborty, who works at the University of North Texas, was speaking at a talk organised by the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics on ‘DNA Databases and Human Identification’ in the city on Monday. The Human DNA Profiling Bill was proposed eight years back in India and has not been introduced in Parliament. There have been many concerns about the bill in the country. The main concern is invasion of privacy and the high costs of maintaining the infrastructure required for the DNA database. In the US, around $16 million (about `100 crore) is sanctioned every five years for maintenance of the DNA database.

Speaking on the concerns Prof. Chakraborty said, “The DNA database’s utility justifies the expenditure on it. The database can be used for solving crimes like human trafficking and to identify bodies. Recently three children trafficked from China and Taiwan to Nicaragua and were disfigured could be tracked using DNA profiling.”

Regarding privacy concerns he said, “Safeguards can be introduced like the three-tier security system in the US to ensure that no one in power gets easy access to the database.”

The Indian DNA bill has safeguards and punishments for those who breach them, he said.