Andhra Pradesh tops in developing 'chance fingerprints' from crime scenes

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh police department has emerged number one in the country when it comes to developing 'chance fingerprints' from crime scenes and also identifying 'chance fingerprints cases', according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

"The force stood first in the country when it comes to developing 'chance fingerprints' from the scenes of crime as well as identifying 'chance print cases' for the year 2019-2020," said an official.

In the assessed year, the state successfully developed 9,418 chance finger prints, leading over all other states in the country.

Kerala stood second, managing to develop 7,687 chance fingerprints.

Similarly, Andhra Pradesh has also topped the list in identifying 'chance fingerprint cases' with 512 instances, 233 more cases than Punjab which managed to identify 279 to emerge as the second best state.

According to the NCRB, the main responsibility of fingerprint experts is to develop chance prints left by criminals at the crime scene to match them with the data bank of existing criminals' fingerprints.

"The main responsibility of fingerprint experts is to develop the 'chance prints' left by criminals at the crime scene and to match the same with the fingerprints of known criminals," the NCRB report noted.

Incidentally, Andhra Pradesh managed to achieve this feat even though the police department was working with fewer number of fingerprint experts than the sanctioned number.

In order to recover fingerprints from the crime scene, it is crucial to cordon off the crime scene, following the best protocols to ensure that the crime is not tampered with.

"Despite working with fewer fingerprint experts as the report suggests, the state stood first in the country in terms of both developing chance fingerprints and identifying chance prints cases speaks volumes about the competence and efficiency of the Andhra Pradesh police," observed state's senior CID officer P V Sunil Kumar.