'Truth serum' used by Indian interrogators

Did you know a 'truth serum' even existed!?

A scandal has erupted in India after interrogators on a hjigh-profile murder case used so-called 'truth serum' sodium pentothal, yet failed to catch the killer, the Times reports.

India has been transfixed by the murder of Aarushi Talwar, 14, who was found with her throat slit in May at her home near Delhi. Police initially blamed the Talwars' domestic help, but were forced to rethink when his body was found on the terrace of the family house the next day.

After a series of embarrassing bungles, Indian police were under pressure to get results. So they turned to a practice long since banned in most democracies, but on the rise in India: they injected their prime suspects with a “truth serum”.

They detained Rajesh Talwar, the dead girl's dentist father, and drugged him with sodium pentothal — the “truth serum”. The Central Bureau of Investigation, India's equivalent of the FBI, took over and declared him innocent last week.

The CBI now says that the culprit was Krishna, an assistant in Dr Talwar's clinic, who was subjected to six hours of “narcoanalysis” at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Bangalore. A suspected accomplice is now receiving the same treatment.

The practice is illegal in Britain, the United States and most other Western democracies, although security officials have suggested that it should be used on suspected terrorists — and some allege that it already has been. India adopted the technique in 2000 when S.Malini, a doctor who is now assistant director of the FSL in Bangalore, used it to coax evidence from a witness in another murder case.

Prisoners are usually taken to a specialist forensic laboratory, where doctors give them sodium pentothal, a commonly used anaesthetic, through a drip to induce a trance-like state. A forensic psychologist then questions the prisoner during the trance, which typically lasts from 15 to 45 minutes.

Doctors often have to slap the prisoners to keep them awake, according to rights groups. “This is nothing but torture,” said Amar Jesani, a co-founder of the Forum for Medical Ethics Society.

Although any evidence gleaned is inadmissible in court, police say the technique is an invaluable and harmless way of establishing facts. “It helps the investigating officer to reach the depths of the crime so that justice and law can prevail,” Rajan Bhagat, a police spokesman, told The Times.

Some say that it is unethical for doctors to take part in narcoanalysis, since the drug tends to be administered against the prisoner's will and can cause respiratory or cardio-vascular complications.

Human rights groups accuse the police of using narcoanalysis as a substitute for proper criminal investigation, and say that it violates the Constitution, which prohibits anyone accused of an offence from being “compelled to be witness against himself”.

Did you know a 'truth serum' even existed!? It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Should it be used on criminals, as is happening more often in India? Or should it continue to be banned, as it is in the UK. US and other nations? How do interrogators even know if what their captors are saying is reliable? If people can't tell the truth, should drugs like this be used to help them along...?