Cyber Forensic Lab expected to speed up investigations

As of now, evidence is being sent to Hyderabad for analysis

The new lab will come up in the premises of the Forensic Science Laboratory at Madiwala. File Photo:G.P. Sampath Kumar

The starting point of almost every criminal investigation, whether a murder mystery or a robbery, has turned out to be a mobile phone or a digital device, like a laptop. An analysis of the mobile call records has turned out to be an elementary procedure.

But the State police did not have the necessary resources and would run to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad for a forensic analysis of any digital evidence.

This delayed many important criminal probes, as cops were forced to wait for the report from Hyderabad. An official said, at times, this derailed sensitive probes.

For instance, after pro-IS tweeter Mehdi Masroor Biswas was arrested in the city, his laptop had been sent to Hyderabad for forensic analysis; the city police are still waiting for a detailed report.

All this is set to change after the Cyber Forensic Science Laboratory is inaugurated on Wednesday by Home Minister K J George. The State police set up the lab in collaboration with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Thiruvananthapuram, which has earlier set up similar labs in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Additional Commissioner of Police B Dayananda, heading the State Forensic Science Laboratory, said that the cyber forensic lab is a shot in the arm for criminal investigations across the State. “Our reports will be admissible as evidence in a court of law henceforth, which would speed up most of our investigation,” he said.