It is nearly impossible to identify a criminal or accused in a large gathering, but for the past four days Anantapur police, tucked in a discreet corner, have been stopping all suspicious people at railway stations, bus stations, highways and crowded marketplaces to scan their fingerprints during nights and peak hours.
A scan of the fingers of persons chosen randomly during this period has given the police some insight into the movements of the accused in cases, history sheeters and some of the convicted criminals. Under the Identification of Prisoners’ Act 1920, the police department can collect the impression of suspects or accused. Equipped with a scanner attached to an app, Fingerprint Identification Network System (FINS), on a tablet computer (tab), the district police have found 10% of the fingerprints matching with the 8 lakh joint database of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“Equipped with 35 tabs, police personnel at Guntakal, Gooty and in every police circle jurisdiction are keeping an eye on the movement of the accused, old criminals or those out on bail,” Superintendent of Police B. Satya Yesu Babu told The Hindu .
Revealing the results of the first three days of implementation of the project in the district, Mr. Yesu Babu said on August 8 out of 812 persons scanned, that of 11 matched with the database, on August 9 out of 1,140 scans 14 of them matched and on Saturday out of 1,146 persons stopped for obtaining fingerprints, that of 6 persons matched.
“Habitual offenders or those wanted in some cases can be bound over under Section 108 in the Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973,” said Mr. Yesu Babu.
Reserve sub-inspector P. Suresh, coordinating the implementation, said an accused in a case in Nizamabad in Telangana was found roaming in Guntakal and an offender in Kadiri was tracked to Gorantla helping the police officials deal with them for questioning with regard to those cases.
Initiated by former SP G. Ashok Kumar, Anantapur district, which has been implementing the face recognition application for identification of criminals and suspects on a pilot basis, has now been able to leverage the FINS technology to keep a watch on troublemakers as the entire case history of the persons is linked to fingerprints and face enabling the police officials to take quick decisions.
