A top Maharashtra police officer on Monday said the police department was often to blame for the delay in investigations into cases and not time taken for the submission of forensic reports connected to them.

Speaking at the inauguration of a mini forensic sciences laboratory in Thane, Director General of Police (Legal and Technical) Hemant Nagrale, who heads the Forensic Science Laboratory mechanism in the state, also pointed out that many a times, FSL reports of cases go missing.