Anara CD controversy thickens

The controversy over the porn CD scam allegedly involving former beauty queen Anara Gupta thickened on Wednesday as two forensic labs contradicted each other over the issue.

The Chandigarh-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory on Tuesday said it was indeed Anara's photograph in the CD, contradicting the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Laboratory in Hyderbabad that had cleared Anara in January.

"The police have received the report from the Chandigarh laboratory and "it is positive," Senior Superintendent of Police, Jammu, Kamal Saini said.

Meanwhile, sources at the CFSL said scientists had examined 'frame-by-frame' the pornographic CD sent by the Jammu and Kashmir police on January 23 before coming to the conclusion that the girl in the film was Anara.

They said the scientists were not aware whether the same CD was sent to the laboratory in Hyderabad, which gave a clean chit to the former Miss Jammu in January, adding that there was no scope for super-imposition or addition of anything in the CD.

Director of Chandigarh-based CFSL R S Verma said, "I do not know what procedure the hyderabad laboratory adopted," while declining to give the report's content.

In Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory Director K P C Gandhi maintained its report on the porn CD clearing Anara was correct. 

"We had compared the CD as per forensic biometric studies from head to toe, including the fingers, toes and the hair line. We found the lady featured in the blue film sent by the J&K police was not Anara," Gandhi said.

Answering another question, he said, "When two CDs or any two forensic samples will yield the same result if examined under the same conditions by using standard methodology."

"If the methodology is different, conditions are different and the samples are not the same, then results may be different. Also, it depends on the competence of the expert, how they interpret the different parameters that have been found in the evidence", he said.

Meanwhile, Anara's lawyer Rahul Panth sought security for her client saying "her life was under threat as the police were making all efforts to implicate her in some way or the other to prove she is on the CD."

Anara's family, meanwhile, is preparing to approach the President and prime minister to seek a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the matter.

Anara was arrested in November last year with five others and booked under the cinematography, immoral trafficking and information technology acts.