Pakistan to charge rape victims Rs 25,000 for medical examination: Reports

In an insensitive move, Pakistan's Forensics Department of Khyber Medical College University proposed a plan to charge rape victims PKR 25,000 for medical examination and PKR 5,000 for an autopsy for the local residents of Peshawar. According to ANI, the decision was taken at a meeting of the Management Committee held on February 14 in which 17 new charges were approved. The proposed plan has even suggested charges for keeping corpses in the cold storage for PKR 1,500 per 24 hours and DNA testing for PKR 18,000. 

An official of the department said, “For the district, Peshawar autopsy cases the department will charge Rs 5,000 per case while for the cases referred from other districts the charges will be Rs 25,000 per post-mortem”. 

The official said that for kinship and paternity test PKR 20,000 has been proposed and further added, “For drug abuse analysis Rs 3,000 charges have to be paid. Urine tests and alcohol analysis will cost Rs 2,000. Test for poison detection to cost Rs 4,000 while freezer charges for dead bodies will be Rs 1,500 per 24 hours”. 

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‘...not a welcome one’ 

According to reports, the police department already has a limited investigation budget and the introduction of such high charges will likely force the officials to ask the victims’ families to pay for not only autopsy but also DNA tests and medical examination of rape victims. While speaking to The Express Tribune, a right activist Tamur Kamal said police stations often ask people to pay for the diesel for police vehicles, but now they will also ask the general public to pay the charges of autopsy and even medical examination of rape victims. Kamal added that the decision by the Forensics Department of Khyber Medical College University, therefore, is not a welcome one. 

As per reports, the decision to introduce the recent charges was taken to meet the operational expenditures for the Forensic Department. It is worth noting that the unclaimed bodies are sent to the Khyber Medical College University for cold storage by the local police where they are stored sometimes for months till their identification and retrieval by the family. 

(With inputs from ANI) 

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