A day on the job with Kabul’s crime scene investigators

Ghullam Faroq bustles by way of the slim hallways on the previous Ministry of Inside constructing within the coronary heart of Kabul, a stack of folders tucked within the criminal of his arm and a cellphone pressed to his ear. He climbs the steps to the second flooring and is buzzed by way of a sequence of doorways with metallic bars and contact keypads.

It’s simply after 7:30am on a day in late 2019 and the top of a 24-hour shift main a group of 11. Earlier than he heads house, Faroq has a debriefing with the director of investigations.

Faroq, 54, is from Logar, a restive province roughly 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Afghanistan’s capital. His crime investigation profession spans greater than 30 years – the previous 11 years of these spent right here at Kabul’s crime scene investigation (CSI) division.

“It’s a busy morning. It’s at all times a busy morning,” Faroq says, settling right into a seat within the director’s workplace. He cuts a dapper determine in his black turtleneck, mustard blazer, putting moustache and slim spectacles.

The CSI unit travels to as many as 30 crime scenes a day, conducting investigations and interviews with witnesses, amassing proof and submitting it to the Forensic Medication Directorate (FMD), the nation’s solely working forensic laboratory, positioned within the Ministry of Public Well being, a two-storey constructing within the centre of Kabul.

Kabul’s CSI division was established in 2009 in a metropolis police station. In the present day, Faroq says there are 10 smaller CSI items and 50 investigators working throughout Afghanistan however the Kabul CSI group of 33 takes on the brunt of the workload, going through a deluge of a whole bunch of circumstances every week from throughout the nation. These vary from homicides to assassinations of the nation’s highest elected officers to serial killings, burglaries, armed robberies, theft and extortion. There are additionally crimes linked to narcotics, to which an estimated three million individuals within the nation of about 34 million are addicted, kidnappings, road crime and home violence – the archives are overflowing.

Furthermore, the group has not been in a position to begin work on a backlog of hundreds of chilly circumstances as a consequence of a scarcity of employees, forensic proof, and ample gear – notably for DNA testing.

In 2014, when US troops left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield as a part of a navy drawdown, useful American forensic gear was handed over to the Ministry of Inside (MOI). However with a scarcity of skilled consultants in Afghanistan who know use that gear, the laboratory within the MOI at present stays inactive, whereas the American devices sit locked away in a warehouse gathering mud, based on FMD specialists.

The operational forensic laboratory on the FMD takes legal circumstances from the CSI division and judicial departments and is working in the direction of constructing the primary nationwide DNA database for Afghanistan, nevertheless it additionally suffers from a scarcity of assets and gear. Regardless of being in operation for 39 years, FMD receives minimal authorities funding and is compelled to ship nearly all of its DNA samples to Canada for evaluation.

The taking pictures

Faroq’s assembly is interrupted by a cellphone name from the police station – a deadly taking pictures at an area hospital. He jumps to his ft and heads exterior to hitch three members of the CSI group climbing into hazmat fits and loading up their van with forensic gear.

Careening by way of Kabul’s busy streets, Faroq receives one other cellphone name. The sufferer is not on the crime scene – police officers violated protocol and took his physique to a close-by navy hospital.

Faroq takes the event in stride and the group detours – this isn’t the primary time a physique has absconded. “Often, we’d go to the crime scene first to gather proof earlier than it’s tainted by others, however we additionally have to take blood samples and images and notes of the physique earlier than the household receives it for burial. If the physique is not on the crime scene, we’ve to choose of precedence,” he says.

The sufferer is a hospital safety guard, allegedly shot within the neck by his colleague whereas they had been each on the night time shift. On the navy hospital, Faroq learns the sufferer was nonetheless alive when he arrived on the emergency room however died whereas being handled. “The suspect and two different witnesses are actually arrested and underneath investigation at 11 police station,” he says.

Within the hospital courtyard, behind a display screen, the sufferer lays on a stretcher.

Faroq takes his fingerprints whereas one other member of the CSI group inspects the physique, scribbling down notes. A 3rd member pictures the injuries. “One bullet with an entry and exit level, right here within the trachea,” calls out Faroq.

“Now NDS [National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service] district head is speaking with the household of the sufferer and telling them that we need to take the physique to FMD. However the household is protesting. They need to take the physique for the funeral now and I don’t suppose they are going to enable FMD to take it,” says Faroq.

“It’s vital for the physique to succeed in FMD in order that they will decide the precise time of the taking pictures, the firing distance and many others. If we will get the suspect to FMD additionally, they will additionally conduct assessments to inform us if the sufferer or suspect was underneath the affect of any alcohol or narcotics.”

On the opposite facet of the display screen, amongst a crowd of curious onlookers, is the useless safety guard’s four-year-old son with a male family member. Because the group packs up and leaves the hospital, in a personal gesture, Faroq fingers the kid his father’s boots.

The group heads to the crime scene, the van transferring by way of crowds of individuals within the bazaar.

“I’ve been working with the CSI group for seven years,” shouts one of many group over the din of the bazaar streaming in by way of the open home windows. He reaches right into a field underneath his seat and fingers out cans of vitality drinks to the motive force, who additionally acts because the group’s photographer, Faroq and one other group member within the again seat.

“He’s been right here for 3 years,” he says in Dari, gesturing to the scrawny man within the again seat. “However he doesn’t discuss. He stopped talking two years in the past. Do you need to interview him?” he provides.

“In the present day there are solely 4 of us,” continues the group member, explaining that two groups are despatched to analyze extra severe or advanced crimes.

“It’s a really harmful and tough job. Truthfully, I feel it’s having a extremely detrimental influence on my psychological state. I’ve personally visited round 5,000 crime scenes. Homicides are only one sort of case. We see lots of suicide circumstances, and likewise the aftermath of suicide bombings.