UP government suspends lab director who said the powder found in the Assembly was an explosive
Shiv Bihari Upadhyay had used a kit that had expired to conduct the test, and had it done by people who did not work in the department’s explosives section.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday suspended the director of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Lucknow for his report on the basis of which the government concluded that a substance found in the state Assembly on July 12 was an explosive, The Hindu reported on Tuesday.
The state government suspended Shiv Bihari Upadyay, the FSL director, after tests conducted by the National Investigation Agency at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad revealed that the powder was not an explosive but silicon oxide. The state FSL had said the powder was Pentaery-thritol Tetranitrate.
“Dr Upadhyay has been suspended on various charges, including giving an unconfirmed, incorrect and incomplete laboratory report on the powder found inside the UP Assembly. He was also misguiding the government,” UP Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar told The Indian Express. He said an investigation has been launched against the suspended director. Upadhyay has also been charged with using a kit that had expired in March 2016 to conduct tests on the substance, and with getting the test conducted by people not working in the explosives section.
The state Anti-Terrorism Squad had first conducted an inquiry into the “explosive” found in the Assembly. It had transferred the case to the NIA on July 26, after questioning two Samajwadi Party MLAs under whose seats the powder was found.