Andhra Pradesh: Fingerprint reading hit by shortage of qualified staff

Visakhapatnam: Over 6,705 fingerprint samples were collected from crime scenes that helped to solve 676 cases in Andhra Pradesh between 2014 and 2015. The police say there is a scarcity of ‘searchers’ in the fingerprint wing in the state with some of the  junior experts being assigned the work of collecting the prints by making imprints on slides.

The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) Report ranks Andhra Pradesh third among all the states in cracking cases with the help of the ‘fingerprint method’ in 2014 while it was ranked fourth  among all states in 2015. A senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, said that there is a staff crisis in the fingerprint wing. The sanctioned strength is 29 in the state including sub-inspectors, assistant sub-inspectors and a few others whereas the number employed at present stands at only nine.

These experts are employed by the criminal investigation department (CID), he added. “Though identifying a person through fingerprint has become effortless in the digital world when compared with the manual system, the matching of fingerprints is an extremely technical job,” said Vizag Rural Police chief Rahul Dev Sharma whose team solved a bank robbery case recently by using the fingerprint method.

Fingerprints collected from crime scenes (murders, rapes, robberies) are compared with those of criminals stored in the central server for identification and these samples act as strong supporting evidence during court trials, he added. “Criminals have now become aware of the technicalities and have turned tech-savvy. So nowadays there is little chance of lifting fingerprints from a crime scene because most  of the criminals choose to wear gloves,” said a CID officer.

South India, Kerala and Tamil Nadu states have a good track record in solving cases by the fingerprint method. Since Section 45 and 73 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, bestow a lot of credibility on ‘finger impressions’, the police have to use modern technology in assessing glove prints to nab the criminals in most of the cases,” say sources in the police department.