In what can be termed as significant achievement, India’s premier institution, the Gandhinagar-based National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) will be joining the United States Department of Defense (DOD) team to help them in recovering and identifying the remains of US soldiers. Numbering over 400, these soldiers are the missing personnel, who are believed to be in India since World War II.
The NFSU officials stated that a memorandum of understanding had been signed to this effect between them and the DOD through video-conferencing on May 27.
The MoU states that the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) which works under the DOD will visit India to trace, recover and identify these missing soldiers.
In a conversation with the Indian Express, Dr Gargi Jani, project manager, NFSU, said: “The DPAA deals with tracing and accounting of missing US army personnel in different wars such as World War I, World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War among others. In that regard, the DOD has signed an MoU with the NFSU to provide the fullest possible accounting for missing personnel to their families and US nation. Our role at the NFSU would be to assist the DPAA with our scientific and logistic capabilities.”
The agency at present is trying to trace more than 81,800 missing personnel of the US Army over several wars in the past century, including more than 400 missing in India during WWII.
She described partnering with DPAA in their noble mission as an honour. “NFSU-DPAA will leverage the joint efforts in India to provide with fullest possible accounting to families of the missing persons," she told the New Indian Express.
In a statement issued by DPAA, its director Kelly McKeague said: "We are privileged and enthusiastic to enter into this formal partnership with India''s National Forensic Science University. Their renowned expertise and capabilities will advance our efforts to find and recover the remains of Americans missing from World War II in India.”
Interestingly, this is the first time that the NFSU will collaborate with an agency to trace missing personnel of a war, which was fought more than seven decades before.
Jani told Indian Express that “the work of DPAA will be mostly in the north eastern parts of the country and teams from NFSU, Indian government and US government will travel in the coming days to assist in the process.”
Meanwhile, the NFSU Vice-Chancellor, Dr. J.M. Vyas commented that the institution has always taken a lead to promote forensics in criminal investigations. “This partnership with DPAA will enable scientific exchange in the areas of forensic anthropology and odontology and develop best practices for human identification,” he said.
The University was recently bestowed with the status of an Institution of National Importance. In fact it is the world's first and only university dedicated to Forensic and allied sciences
