Cops give nod to new fingerprint system

A headless body was found at Oshiwara bridge last month. Fingerprints from the corpse were sent to the Finger Print Bureau of the Crime Investigation Department.
Within 10 minutes, experts found a match from their database of 1.5 lakh prints, revealing that the deceased was arrested by the Oshiwara police some months ago, along with another man.
He was traced and he revealed that he was the killer.
The introduction of the Fingerprinting Analyses and Criminal Tracing System (FACTS-4) has been cheered in police circles after the system was implemented in full swing a month ago.
It has a database of 1.5 lakh records, and the state government spent Rs 75 lakh on research carried out by the Hyderabad-based CMC corporation.
So far, the state has spent Rs 4 crore on introducing this software all over the state. "Mumbai is the first to get it," said Police Commissioner M N Singh.
"The system saves time; the earlier manual system was time consuming. This is the fourth version of the software designed for us," he added.
It took a year for the experts to gather the data, feed it into the system and install it.
A criminal''s print (rolled print) taken at a police station upon arrest is scanned and fed into the system.
"Previously, we kept records of only convicted persons. Now we record all arrested persons. We also send the prints to other states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Harayana, J&K and Goa. We are also connected to Mauritius," said Inspector B D Shinde, who''s spent 30 years in this field.
Prints are taken several times to ensure there is no mistake in the fingerprint sequence, which is of pivotal importance.
The FPB has a team of 80 experts. "The manual technique would take 4 to 5 hours for 15 slips of prints. Now, we can feed 25 slips at a time and it takes only 10 minutes."
Every day, the experts receive 200 slips from police stations all over Mumbai.
Chance prints found at a crime scene are also collected. They are scanned and the system records their characteristics.
Whirls, hoops, cores, left delta and right delta characteristics are recorded.
This information is converted into electronic data, which is transferred to the main server for processing.
The print goes through the enhancement process and, within minutes, the system spits out a match.
The identity of the person, along with where and how many times he was apprehended and by whom is given. This information is sent to the police station concerned.
Sources said a proposal to decentralise the system at the regional level (5 regions) has been given to Singh.
"We have 30,000 slips of FP pending because the system is fully loaded," said Shinde.
The system has not been used for crime detection only. From January to May, 30 unclaimed corpses have been identified through the system.