Rapid screening of ketamine in confiscated orange juice by thin layer chromatography

Department of Criminology and Forensic Sciences, Dr. H. S. Gour University, Sagar-470 003,

Madhya Pradesh, India

E-mail : dev1bose@rediffmail.com

Regional Forensic Science Laboratory, Dharmshala, Himachal Pradesh, India

 Area de Quimica Analitica, Universitat Jaume I, 12080, Castello, Spain 

Department of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221 005, Uttar Pradesh, India

Manuscript received 13 December 2011, revised 10 May 2012, accepted 07 June 2012

Poisoning by unidentified duping agent particularly during journey is an important security and health problem in India. The intention behind the act is to stupefy the person and commit robbery or other crimes. After a general survey based on government railway police version, hospital findings, version of accused and reports from forensic science laboratory it was concluded that ketamine was frequently used as duping drug. In this paper, a new, fast, cost effective and reproducible thin layer chromatographic screening method is discussed for the determination of ketamine in orange juice. The solvent system used for the determination of ketamine is water : butanol (40 : 60) and dragendorff reagent as localizing agent, which shows orange coloured spot at R_f value 0.68. The developed method was applied to real and spiked orange juice sample giving satisfactory result.