On Sunday, the father of DNA fingerprinting in India, Lalji Singh breathed his last in the city of Banaras. He suffered a massive heart attack while he was about travel to New Delhi. He was 70. O P Upadhyaya, the chief medical superintendent of Sunder Lal Hospital in BHU said, “Lalji Singh complained of chest pain when he reached the Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport here in Banaras to board a flight for Delhi. He was taken to the BHU Trauma Centre but could not be saved.” Lalji Singh was the 25th vice-chancellor of BHU and a recipient of Padma Shri. Singh hailed from Jaunpur district’s Kalvari village. On Monday evening, Singh was cremated at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi.

Singh was known face among his colleagues, he was popularly called ‘Bhola Bhandari’ by his colleagues at BHU. Singh joined the esteemed university in 1962. He did his bachelors, masters and PhD degrees from BHU. Singh had developed the techniques of DNA fingerprinting during his stay in Edinburgh. His techniques were independent of the efforts of Alec Jeffreys, the geneticist mainly credited for this technology. Singh set up a small makeshift DNA testing infrastructure at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB). He was later to head for 11 years. Along with then CCMB director Pushpa M Bhargava, Singh tried to convince the government to set up a specialised DNA testing facility in India, but without much result.

J Gowrishankar, former head of CDFD said, “Having developed the (DNA testing) techniques, Singh realised the kind of applications it could be used for, including in criminal investigations. He wanted India to become the leader in this technology… But the government was faced with more pressing matters… So, to convince every one of the utilities of his DNA techniques, Singh decided to make public demonstrations.”

Singh volunteered to help law enforcement agencies in investigating cases using DNA fingerprinting techniques. He educated investigators, lawyers and judges. He used to get samples from police and test the same at CCMB. He appeared as a witness and expert assistance in several cases. A couple of criminal cases in Kerala were solved with his help. But the big turnaround came when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991.

V K Kumra, a professor at BHU’s Institute of Sciences, said: “He revamped the entire campus. He upgraded the Sir Sundarlal Hospital’s Trauma Centre and a super-speciality clinic of neurosurgery and heart diseases was built. He also upgraded laboratories…”