Bhubaneswar: Experts in criminal justice system insist on the need to adopt advanced scientific methods during investigation to crack complex criminal cases without resorting to third degree torture in police custody.
Investigating officers rely heavily on the reports of scientific experts at the forensic science laboratories and fingerprint bureaux in various districts as well as the State Forensic Science Laboratory (SFSL) and State Finger Print Bureau (SFPB) in Bhubaneswar.
However, severe staff crunch has crippled the capabilities of the prime scientific wings of the state police force for past several years resulting in huge pendency of cases.
The “Finger Print in India-2020”, annual report released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said there is more than 50 per cent vacancy in SFPB and other fingerprint bureaux across the state. The report claims as many as 34 posts out of the sanctioned strength of 66 are lying vacant at SFPB, Bhubaneswar and various districts of the state. There are only 20 Sub Inspectors (SIs) working in the bureau in place of sanctioned 38 SIs.
All Assistant SI posts are lying vacant while only one constable is deployed as against the sanctioned six posts in the state. Similarly, one director’s post is also lying vacant at the SFPB here.
Meanwhile, the cops deployed at various courts of the state managed to send only 15 fingerprints of criminals post conviction to the SFPB in 2020. The SFPB of Punjab received 11,593 finger print records during the same period. Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh managed to record the fingerprints of 5,566 and 5,469 convicts in 2020.
All major states recorded much higher record slips than Odisha in 2020. The SFPB receives a number of requests from the investigators to search and trace the identity of the accused to trace their criminal antecedents using the storage of finger prints in its possession.
The SFPB managed to trace the identity of the accused in 4,813 cases out of the finger print records of 1,90,356 including 17,701 received last year. The SFPB succeeded in helping the cops in identifying the accused in 24 cases by collecting evidence from crime scene.
The situation of forensic science laboratories is also no better than the finger print bureaux.
Recently, the Orissa High court, while hearing a case, expressed its concerns over the huge manpower shortage at the laboratories across the state. The HC directed the state government to strengthen the laboratories and fill up vacancies to deal with the huge pendency of cases. As per reports, as many as 589 cases in connection with DNA tests are pending with SFSL. Other sections of SFSL have also recorded a huge number of pending cases.