Occupation: Finger-print expert
“To be a finger-print expert, one has to have a graduate degree in Physics or Chemistry and then clear the Public Service Commission examinations. One then undergoes six-month’s training at the Finger Print Bureau at Thiruvananthapuram. It is followed by a three-year practical training time when one gets trained at different offices. Finally, there is the national-level examination involving theory, practical and viva-voce which one has to clear with high percentage to be a certified expert. I remember the year I cleared the national-level examination, the top three positions were taken by the three candidates from Kerala.
I now work in the Kozhikode city office with a superior inspector and another colleague. An expert swings into action when information comes in from the station house officer about a crime. We reach the scene as quickly as possible and examine all the places the offender is likely to have touched. We have a chemical mixture which we apply with a soft brush at all these possible spots. If the surface is white, we apply a black mixture to decipher prints and vice-versa. If it is a multi-coloured surface, we use a fluorescent-coloured powder. Basically, the print on articles is the sweat of the offender and one cannot see it since it is colourless. Once the fingerprints are visible, our trained photographer takes multiple shots of them. Once he is done clicking pictures, we lift the print with a cello tape and paste it on an OHP (transparent) sheet. We work on these till the prints come. Then begin our real work. We have a record of nearly one lakh finger prints from the city which we have segregated into different categories.
We slowly begin to compare the collected finger print with each one in the record. The job is about patience. If you are lucky, you might find your match in the first file you pick. Some times, search goes on for days. There would also be occasions when you do not find the match at all. You tend to get a tad disappointed, but it is part of the job. We get a match when the “eight minutiae” is satisfied — the specimen and the record have to agree on eight different criteria. Then we inform the SHO and when the time comes we appear in court with the enlarged copies of the match.
Just because one could not find a match instantly, it doesn’t mean the case is closed. Every time an arrest is made in the police stations in the area, finger prints are recorded in our files. If a first-time offender, whose finger print is not on our records, is caught for a crime later, we could still trace him to the first crime with the prints we had collected then.
Instances of a breakthrough in a case solely on the basis of finger print match are rare. But we do have them. Recently, at a doctor’s house in Feroke, there was case of housebreak and theft. In our jargon, it was a “grave case” where a lot of articles were stolen. But we could find the match the very next day and the police could nab him the same night and retrieve the lost goods. This is a job which requires you to blend intelligence, experience and curiosity. If one says Mammootty and Mohanlal, their faces spring in your head; for us it is the finger prints. With experience, one can get a good idea about a finger print from the crime scene itself. The finger prints of well-known criminals are there in my head.
Though we work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., in a sense we are on 24-hour duty, constantly getting ourselves updated on new crimes and developments. Two factors characterise finger prints — permanence and uniqueness. Finger prints are formed in the fourth month of foetal life and the skin is one of the last body parts to decompose. Finger prints remain the same in this time period. Secondly, no two finger prints are alike. I now also have a post-graduate degree in criminology and forensic science which gives me a more wholesome perspective of my job.”
As told to P. ANIMA
A column on the men and women who make Kozhikode what it is.
