The capital police established a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) about two months ago, under the investigation wing, which has started working on different assignments.

A senior police officer told Dawn that separate units dealing with car lifting, property and personal crimes had been created to professionally investigate the cases and trace the criminals with modern techniques in the shortest possible time. These units are supervised by the high-profile crime unit and the crime record office (CRO).

The CRO, which was set up for the first time in the capital, is collecting details of criminals and developing a database which could help in the creation of a ‘red book’, consisting of details about criminals and their fingerprints.

The police have also sought help from the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to identify criminals with the help of fingerprints collected from crime scenes. However, so far, the ratio of solved crimes, even with Nadra’s help, is not more than five per cent, the officer said.

“Fingerprints collected by Nadra only have straight impressions, so it is difficult to match it them with partial fingerprints that are obtained from crime scenes.” Most countries have a record of criminals’ fingerprints in 3D, also known as roll prints because of the way they are obtained. Rolled fingerprints help the police in the identification of criminals easily, he added.

“Now the CRO is creating a data bank that includes the fingerprints of those arrested in connection with any criminal activity and produced before the court in two or more cases.”

He said that rolled fingerprints of over 20,000 accused or convicts had been taken manually and kept in the record of the police. Similarly, the e-data of the fingerprints is also being developed and the finger impressions of 1,500 accused and convicts have been stored. But there is no software available with the CRO to utilise the e-data and police are approaching different software engineers to develop a mechanism to help make their job easier.

At present, the officials of the CRO are matching the fingerprints collected from the crime scenes with the ones available in their record, but this is a time-consuming process.

According to the officer, there is no data on rolled fingerprints available anywhere in the country. Before partition, law enforcement agencies used to collect rolled fingerprints, but the practice was later abandoned. The officer said rolled fingerprints would help in increasing the conviction rate as it was considered an important part of evidence in any criminal case.

Similarly, the CRO is also preparing the red book, carrying the details of criminals involved in terrorism, robbery, kidnapping for ransom, burglary and auto-theft cases.

On the other hand, the SIU has also started geo-mapping and geo-timing of criminal activities in the capital, especially robberies, burglaries and auto-thefts. This will help the police identify the spots where criminals strike the most and take action against them on time, the officer added.

“The activity will also be helpful in identification of the spots, crime analysis, relocation of the police pickets and targeted snap checking,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2015

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