R Geetha, retired chief chemical examiner, and M Chithra, scientific officer at the chemical examiner's laboratory, told the CBI special court on Tuesday that no semen stains were detected in all the scientific tests conducted on the vaginal swab and smear of Sister Abhaya.
The charge against Geetha and Chithra, made by Abhaya Case Action Council convenor Jomon Puthenpurackal, was that under the influence of senior police officials they had made corrections in the toxicology test results to conceal the original finding that there were indeed traces of semen. Jomon had alleged that the two officials had colluded with the accused to pass off Abhaya's death as suicide.
Both Geetha and Chithra told the court that the charge was baseless. Chithra, who made the corrections, said it was usual for officers to make such corrections on the work book. “It was just a work book,” she said. Geetha backed her saying it was a “simple correction”.
Chithra, who was then a junior scientific officer, had conducted the tests under the supervision of Geetha. To begin with, two preliminary tests were done. The first was the acid phosphatase test. This is done to find the presence of acid phosphatase, an enzyme the semen is crowded with. Acid phosphatase will turn purple or pink when it comes into contact with certain chemicals used in the test.
“The test showed purple,” Chithra said. Prosecution lawyer Navas wanted to know what this indicated. “This meant both, that there could have been semen stains or not,” Chithra said. Body fluids other than semen and even bacterial and fungal infections could also turn purple or pink under test conditions, Chithra said. On the work book, the result was recorded as “positive”.
Since the test was not conclusive, a second test was done. The Florence and Brentamine test. “Some crystals were observed through the microscope,” Chithra said. So what does that mean, Navas asked. “That semen is present and also that semen is not present,” Chithra said. She said that the crystals could have indicated choline which was present both in semen and other bodily fluids. This result, though it was vague, was also recorded in the work book as “positive”.
A final confirmatory test was then done. The vaginal swab and smear were subjected to thorough microscopic examination for sperm cells or spermatozoa. “This was negative,” Chithra said. She handed over the test results to her senior officer Geetha. Finding that the preliminary results did not tally with the final confirmatory test, she directed Chithra to carry out the preliminary tests once more.
The acid phosphatase test was once again positive, it showed a pink colour. The second time, the Florence Bremantine test was negative. For additional confirmation, Geetha told Chithra to conduct the same test using the TLC (Thin Layer Chromatography) method. Once again it turned up a negative result, meaning there were no traces of semen.
Chithra then made a correction in the work book. What was earlier recorded as “positive” was written over as “negative”. Chithra admitted that she had not initialled her signature near the correction but said it was just a work book. Geetha observed that it was a “simple correction”.
In the final certificate of the chemical examiner's laboratory, all the tests, including the acid phosphatase, were shown as “negative”. Again, it was said that it was usual to align all the results to the final confirmatory report. In fact, both Geetha and Chithra were acquitted of all charges by the Thiruvananthapuram judicial first class magistrate in 2014.
The serology test of Abhaya's viscera to find traces of poison, too, had thrown up a negative result. In other words, Abhaya was neither raped nor poisoned.
The prosecution also did not seem keen to cross-examine the witnesses. This further indicates that the CBI, too, had found no merit in the rape or poisoning angle. The CBI's case is that Sr Abhaya was clubbed to death when she accidentally came upon the accused in flagrante delicto, in the act of wrongdoing.
Abhaya was found dead in the well at Pious X Convent Hostel in Kottayam town on March 27, 1992. Abhaya was a pre-degree student at the nearby BCM College then. Local police had stated that the nun had committed suicide, but a CBI probe later concluded that Abhaya was murdered.