Thiruvananthapuram: According to the Central Fingerprints Bureau (CFPB), the Kerala police ranked first in the country in tracking offenders using fingerprints. Kerala was ranked second last year after Andhra Pradesh.
In the CFPB report, Kerala fingerprint officials cracked 675 criminal cases, Karnataka had 517, and Andhra Pradesh had 412. Among the findings of the report was mention of the state fingerprint bureau’s and the police’s work in solving the controversial snakebite murder in Kollam, south Kerala, last year. ‘It is an ample proof of the hard work of the state fingerprints bureau backed by technology leveraged effectively for crime prevention and detection. Officers of the bureau assisted by the AFIS (automated fingerprint identification system) software put up a stellar performance in becoming the first,’ said Manoj Abraham, additional director general of police and an expert in cyber security.
Using fingerprint science, the country has a Central Finger Print Bureau as well as state-level bureaus that contribute to police investigations. Experts say fingerprint evidence is the most scientific and foolproof method in investigating crimes. An expert in fingerprints must develop chance prints left at a crime scene by criminals and match them with fingerprints in a database of convicts.
At the beginning of a crime scene investigation, a fingerprint expert examines the scene closely. Afterward, the expert analyzes the prints left by the criminals at the scene. After they have been collected, the chance fingerprints are compared to the fingerprint database. This helps to identify if the crime has already been committed by someone whose records are already available. The National Automated Fingerprints Identification System (NAFIS) streamlines the nation’s database management processes.
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In the report, the police team gave special mention to the way they foiled the sensational murder of 25-year-old Uthra. At first, it was dismissed as a snakebite case, but police and parents became suspicious since it was the second snakebite that went fatal. The fatal bite happened while she was receiving treatment for the first bite. Later, police arrested her husband, P Sooraj, and a snake handler who had provided him with a cobra. The investigation revealed that Sooraj purchased a cobra for Rs 10,000 from the snake handler. Additionally, he was trained by his handler. Apparently, he took it to Uthra’s house in Anchal, where she has been receiving treatment at her parents’ house ever since the first incident.
According to the police, after Uthra had fallen asleep, Sooraj removed the snake from the bottle and threw it on her. Throughout the night, he stayed awake to make sure it didn’t bite him. In the morning, he left the room and began reading a newspaper on the verandah. It was an early morning discovery when Uthra’s mother discovered her unconscious. After being rushed to a hospital, doctors determined that she had been bitten by a snake. Currently, police are on trial in the case, and a digital and dummy presentation was used to recreate the entire incident.
The cracking of theft on India’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant two years ago also found mention in the report. The accused, two painters working on the ship, were arrested after matching their fingerprints taken at the time of employing them. Last year, the National Investigation Agency arrested them in north India.
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