By IANS,
London : Pakistan has passed on the DNA profiles of the suspected terrorists behind last November’s Mumbai attacks to the Interpol and all its member-countries, who include India, the policing body said Monday.
The international police organisation said Pakistan had shared the information with all of the Interpol’s 187 member-countries, calling it a “benchmark” move.
The Lyon-based body said its DNA experts checked the profiles against the organisation’s global database immediately upon receiving the information Saturday.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in a statement that the body had received “police information of paramount importance that would allow it to help Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) thoroughly and comprehensively to determine the full international dimension of these attacks.”
Noble added that in committing itself to comparing the DNA profiles of all terrorists and all non-nationals arrested by Pakistan’s police, “Pakistan’s co-operation was crucially helping set new international standards for terrorism investigations, especially those involving non-nationals.”
“Pakistan’s decision to send its DNA terrorist-related profiles to Interpol so that all member countries can compare their DNA profiles against them sets a benchmark for Interpol in terrorist-related investigations,” Noble said.
“The only way for investigators to know for certain the true international dimension of a case and the true identity of a suspect is to compare fingerprints and DNA profiles against both national and Interpol’s global databases,” he said.
The DNA profiles which Pakistan has sent have now been added to Interpol’s database containing almost 85,000 DNA profiles and are available for international comparison by the body’s member-countries.