A murder has been committed. Behind the police lines, evidence is being painstakingly collected with the utmost care and packaged to be sent for forensic testing. In the laboratory, an investigator discovers a bloodstain which will link a suspect to the scene of the crime. Coupled with other forms of evidence, including fingerprints, DNA profiles, ammunitions testing and other forms of high technological forensic testing, the murderer is uncovered and convicted.

Sounds like a scene out of the popular television series, Crime Scene Investigation, CSI? In fact, such a scene plays itself out whenever a crime occurs, among the busy commercial district of Petaling Jaya. Here, inside the concrete walls and the six storey tall building of Jabatan Kimia Malaysia houses the Forensics Division, the Malaysian equivalent to CSI. The Forensics division generally offers scientific services for the Malaysian law and enforcement agencies with its core competencies in various forensics disciplines.

The DNA lab of the Forensics division started in 1994, and has now become a major tool in crime scene investigation, starting out with the Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) system which may take up to 2 months for the analysis of a sample. Today, with current technological methods such as Polymerase Chain Reaction – Short Tandem Repeats (PCR-STRs) typing and column DNA electrophoresis, it is possible to analyze DNA recovered from minute and even partially degraded samples within days. In fact, the forensics department are constantly updating themselves with the latest methods and has been accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors / Laboratory Accreditation Board, an internationally acclaimed US crime laboratory evaluation body. The forensics department is one of only 10 labs outside the US with the entitlement, which is mandatory for forensic labs in certain US states.

Speaking to the Director of the Forensic Division, Mr. Hithaya Jeevan Narayanasamy, he commented that, “DNA [sequencing] is part of the jigsaw puzzle that may help the police solve a crime or even exonerate innocent people. When a crime is committed, the police will be racing against time to solve this jigsaw puzzle, and what forensics do is to provide the tools and puzzle pieces.”

The methods employed by the lab, include PCR-STRs which allows the amplification of clandestine traces of DNA like contact traces from cigarette butts, cups, collars, etc. Y-STR sequencing is employed when the need to trace paternal linage arises, like paternity disputes and rape cases. While another method known as mitochondrial DNA sequencing may be used on difficult samples such as skeletal remains.