Lack of fingerprint experts impairs Tamil Nadu police’s effectiveness

Chennai

Tamil Nadu Fingerprint Bureau, which is reeling under pressure with chronic staff shortage, will have to wait for several more years to get qualified  experts who can actually depose before the court and assist the police in crime investigation.

Though the government has sanctioned the recruitment of sub-inspectors (entry level) for the department, which  now functions under the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), the vacancies of the fingerprint experts will only get filled when the selected candidates pass an examination conducted by the Central Fingerprint Bureau.

Sources in SCRB told DTNext that the recruited sub-inspectors will have to undergo an on-job training for three years before they can  even appear for the qualifying examination. The recruited sub-inspectors can become a ‘fingerprint expert’ only after passing this examination and only after that they can depose before the court and take up independent fingerprint examination to assist police in investigation.

“This is a cumbersome process and many fail to pass the examination. The eligibility criteria for application to the post of sub-inspectors in the  bureau is graduation in any science stream. The problem is that all these recruited sub-inspectors will have to be trained as they do not have a specialisation in fingerprint study and fingerprint extraction,” a police official said.

Most of the time this on-job training also becomes a painful ordeal for the existing fingerprint experts as they work under stress  all the time. “Police seek the help of fingerprint experts in all crimes reported. With the present staff strength, it is a Herculean task. We have only two to three fingerprint experts in each district. So most of the time, the on-job training does not happen satisfactorily,” the official added.

The staff shortage due to years of non-recruitment and lack of properly trained personnel have also affected the quality of fingerprinting system in the state. On an average, only about 25 per cent of criminal cases are proved with the help of the  bureau, sources added.

Tamil Nadu had recalled a few retired fingerprint experts to tide over the manpower shortage. These experts are still working with the single digit fingerprint bureaus across the state.

Sources suggested that the state government should conduct specialised courses on fingerprinting and only recruit personnel who have completed such courses.