JAIPUR: A fingerprint left behind at a crime scene could soon be matched against a criminal record anywhere in the country without investigators having to wait for physical fingerprint slips to move through different offices. The city police have begun rolling out National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) scanning machines at police stations, bringing nationwide biometric searches directly to the thana level.
NAFIS would eliminate delays in fingerprint verification for police
Until now, NAFIS scanning facilities in Rajasthan were largely available at district SP offices, DCP offices and specialised fingerprint units. Following an order issued a few days ago, the system is being integrated with police stations and some city stations have already started using it, a senior police officer said.NAFIS, implemented by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), is a nationwide repository of criminal fingerprint and palm-print data. It enables authorised police personnel to search fingerprints against records from across the country instead of being restricted to state or district-level databases.This means a fingerprint lifted from a crime scene in Jaipur can potentially be matched with the fingerprint record of a person previously arrested in Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal or any other state.The system assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number (NFN) to a person when their fingerprints are enrolled. The number remains linked to the person’s criminal record for life, allowing multiple FIRs and cases registered in different states to be connected to the same biometric identity.Fingerprints recovered from crime scenes, known as “chance prints”, can also be searched through the national database. This has helped police solve cases in which the suspect had no previous criminal record in the state where the crime occurred.As per NCRB’s 2023 Finger Print India report, there was a burglary case in East Delhi in 2023 where jewellery and cash were stolen from a house. Fingerprint experts examined the scene and developed three chance prints from two almirahs using black powder. The prints were subsequently searched through NAFIS and two were found to match the right thumb and left index finger of an accused from Rajasthan who had previously been arrested in Haryana. The accused was subsequently arrested in the burglary case.The shift to police stations is significant as portable live-scan devices provided under the NAFIS project also allow fingerprints to be captured digitally in the field, reducing dependence on physical fingerprint slips.NAFIS is administered by Central Finger Print Bureau (CFPB) under NCRB. It was designed to create a searchable national repository of criminal fingerprints to enable national-level searches from NAFIS.
