<i>Criminal database system to curb crime</i>

Police here are now one step forward in combating crime with newly introduced criminal database system with fingerprint identification.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) introduced the system on April 10 for the first time in the country's police department to enable the law enforcement agency to identify the criminals and other vital information within shortest possible time.
Initially the system has been introduced at Double Mooring, Halishahar and Pahartali police stations, out of 12, while the authorities expect to bring the other police stations under the system gradually after evaluating its effectiveness.
Senior police officials said the system would help police access to the essential information in short time.
Police in the country have long been facing enormous problem in collecting, analysing and retrieving required information about any arrested criminal since the existing traditional criminal record keeping system is cumbersome and time consuming.
In many cases police fail to grill the real culprits even after nabbing them as the latter manage to get release through the loopholes of law by giving wrong information or fake identity to police.
“It is really difficult for a police official to recollect hundreds of incidents he faces during his everyday job but surprisingly police are to depend on it,” said Md Iltut Mish, former assistant commissioner (AC) of Double Mooring zone, who initiated the project of preparing the database facing such a problem several times while serving his duty.
Two people were arrested with lethal weapons in connection with snatching Tk 4 lakh from the manager of a petrol pump Nur-e-Madina near AK Khan Moor under Double Mooring police station on February 8 in 2008. One of the arrestees told his name as Jasim during the primary interrogation.
But an officer of the Detective Brach recognised him as Sharif when the two were brought to the CMP office for taking photograph before sending them to the court. Sharif was arrested in 1999.
“We are to collect information about the criminals through sorting out their past records kept in the DB,” said Iltut, adding that in most of the cases it is difficult to find out the past information of a criminal and due to lack of required information the criminals manage to get released through bail from the court. Taking advantage of the system, they often commit crimes using fake names and addresses after the release.
Iltut said criminal database is a must to investigate into the criminal incidents and curb crime properly.
To provide a software solution to the matter, Corporate IT Limited, a private firm, came forward and developed and designed the database for the CMP.
Md Zillur Rahman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the firm, said all the required information of a criminal could be preserved through the software while it would offer easy access to information about a criminal.
Different types of information, including physical identifications like marks, skin, height, forensic and DNA reports about the suspected and arrested criminals, their fingerprints, criminal's previous backgrounds like date of arrest, confinement, release, types of crime and case, activities area as well as their addresses and photographs can now be preserved through the database.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) (North) Banaj Kumar Mazumder said police will be able to identify the culprits most authentically through using the fingerprint identification.
He said availability of vital information of a criminal in a moment would surely expedite the arrest or bringing the criminals under prosecution.
CMP Commissioner Md Maniruzzaman said it is necessary to make the police equipped with modern IT facilities for curbing crime as the criminals nowadays are changing patterns and techniques to commit crime.
He said CMP launched its own website last year and it is now one step ahead in providing service to the city dwellers through this innovative database.