LAHORE: The capital city district police are mulling starting deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profiling of all arrested, jailed and freed criminals (returnees from jails) of last five-year cases after Feb 15 in association with the Punjab Forensic Science Agency to introduce the new technique as prime investigation lead.

The DNA profiling will be the first-ever facility utilised by any police department in the country to streamline databank of criminals to prevent and detect crime against person and property cases in a more professional and authentic way.

Forensic experts in the police department are currently getting only finger-printing and photographing of criminals to maintain a databank which is not up to the mark and lack centralised system.

The capital city police have only three mobile forensic labs which have low-quality investigation kits.

The move will help restrict repetition of crimes

Senior Superintendent of Police (Investigation) Rana Ayyaz Saleem, who has initiated the project, told Dawn on Thursday that the initiative was being taken to bring the criminals in a profiling which would restrict repetition of crimes especially crime against property and rape.

He said it was generally observed that the criminals of heinous cases like dacoity, robbery, theft, burglary and rape were usually habitual repeaters and police were unable to monitor and bind them after their release.

He said as the PFSA had acquired state-of-the-art software worth $1.5 million for DNA sampling from the Punjab government, the arrangements had been finalised to start getting DNA samples from criminals especially categorised in returnees from jails (RJs).

Saleem said joint teams of police and PFSA would be formed to initiate DNA sampling and profiling of arrested criminals and those who will be sent to jails by courts in six police divisions after Feb 15, adding the DNA coding would be saved in the software to help detect cases.

He said the exercise would provide four major benefits as police would receive surety bonds from criminals who were out of jails, receive surety bonds from their guarantors, identify missing criminals and those who change their places, and identify those who abandon crimes.

The SSP was of the view that majority of criminals after being released from jails indulged in crimes again and the investigation police would be able to identify the repeaters of different crimes with the help of databank.

He said the use of DNA profiling would be an added and secured feature in detection of cases as police could not secure finger-printing of criminals and repeaters because of human and technological hiccups.

He said with the DNA profiling, forensic experts after lifting available evidence of any suspect like hair, piece of cloth, blood, finger and hand prints, and cigarette would be able to extract DNA from evidence to match it with profiling of the same suspect if available in the databank. He said the DNA profiling would also be able to help partially detect the suspect through DNA of close relative from same bloodline.

The SSP said the importance of DNA profiling could be well judged from the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation of US had the largest-ever DNA databank of more than 300,000 criminals.

He said a request had been put up to the PFSA authorities to impart training to Lahore police forensic experts about DNA sampling and profiling for future activities.

Saleem said police authorities were planning a draft legislation and seeking the government to bind National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) to obtain DNA sample of CNIC applicants in order to streamline and coordinate centralised data with law-enforcement agencies.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play