Yeh raha proof, tum hi mere baap ho!

AHMEDABAD: A rich Surti textile businessman recently made his 23-year-old son a legal heir only after DNA tests proved he was the biological father. Until then, the son was given a daily allowance of Rs 100 to manage his affairs and allowed to stay in a corner of the house.
“The son came to us, tired of the humiliation and we ran the tests,” says Salil Vaniwala of the laboratory in Surat where the DNA test was carried out.
“They hugged each other as if they were meeting for the first time when they found out the results.”
This is just one of 20-odd cases that the laboratory gets every month.
Suspicion has spawned a booming business for DNA testing in Gujarat.
The three labs with the facility in the state get at least one request daily if not more for paternity tests from men who suspect their wives of infidelity and question the parentage of their children.
“We have done 66 paternity tests since we started the genetics laboratory two months back,” said Dr Sandeep Shah whose lab has a hi-tech gene sequencer. “In most cases, fathers bring their 10 to 12-year-old children for tests to clear their doubts.”
Only occasionally do they get cases like Soham where the child tries to prove his parentage, or a woman tries to get rid of the infidelity taint.
In most cases the suspicion is unfounded. Doctors say of all the tests they have run, the fathers are proved right in only one per cent cases. Even the price is not a deterrent. The tests cost Rs 8,000 per person and at least two people have to be tested for a result.
The doctors, of course, are not complaining.
“We don’t provide our services for legal purposes to avoid hassles but do it for personal verification,” says Vaniawala. In contrast, the state government’s Directorate Forensic Science at Gandhinagar does not entertain private requests and carries out tests only on court order. In Ahmedabad, the test was first offered by Dr Jayesh Sheth in the private sector.