Their loved ones died years ago. Evidence is trapped in a file no one seems to care about
Thousands of families wait for justice, closure and compensation with viscera reports pending, often indefinitely, in forensic labs. What causes the delay and what is the way out? TOI investigates
MEERUT/NOIDA: The words have become a stock phrase trotted out by law enforcement authorities. “We have preserved the victim’s viscera for further investigation.” Or, “The viscera report is awaited before we can come to any conclusion.” But even as they are routinely uttered at press briefings, for thousands of families they represent justice delayed or an endless wait for closure and compensation.
Komal Kashyap, 31 now and a mother of three, knows this all too well. She has spent the last four years in suspended grief. Every three months, she walks into Jani police station in Meerut, hoping for an answer that never comes. Her husband, 30-year-old Sachin Kashyap, a pulp operator at a paper mill in the city’s Partapur region, died under unclear circumstances in 2021. The cause of death remains unknown, locked inside a viscera report that has yet to arrive.
