Mobile Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System scans fingerprints to give instant results

Mysore/Mysuru: Putting digital information technology to maximum use, the City Police are using Mobile Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (M-CCTNS) or fingerprint live scanners in the M-CCTNS app to trace the criminal records of suspects. Each Police Station in the city has got two scanners which are an effective means to track down criminals who come to the city from various places.

People with criminal records arrive in Mysuru mostly on buses and trains. Take for example, the Lashkar Police Station under whose jurisdiction the Sub-urban Bus Stand comes. “We are effectively using the fingerprint scanner on anyone moving suspiciously in and around the Bus Stand and our teams keep constant vigil,” Lashkar Inspector P.P. Santosh told Star of Mysore yesterday.

M-CCTNS is a Union Home Ministry project and the app is linked to all the criminal records in Karnataka and the country. The system enables access to the national database of criminal records and an authorised person sitting anywhere can access the data.

The system also covers scientific and technical organisations having databases required for the investigation and other purposes, namely, fingerprint bureaux and forensic laboratories. Checking of criminal antecedents of a person is also made easy. With pictures and fingerprints of criminals stored in the system, crime investigation would become easy. It is a monitoring tool in the hands of the Police.

“We get information within one or two minutes. Once the fingerprint (thumb impression or 10-digit fingerprint) is scanned and uploaded to the app, the system detects if the suspect has any criminal history. All the FIRs and cases under the person’s name flash on the mobile screen. If the records match, we get a ‘match’ signal and if they do not match, the screen flashes ‘not matched’,” Santosh explained.

All the details of suspects who have been part of burglaries or thefts they have committed individually and for which they had been arrested before being released are obtained in the app.

The app is available on the mobile phones of the Policemen. Also, the app can scan the suspects’ fingerprints once they place their fingers on the phone screen.

Earlier, fingerprints of suspects would be sent to bureaus in the city or district headquarters. On average, it took around 10 days to get the suspects’ history. Now, Police can examine them on the spot and know the results immediately.