Assam CID develops online facility to speed up investigations

GUWAHATI: The criminal investigation department (CID) of Assam Police has developed a FSL (forensic science laboratory) report online downloading facility for timely receipt of forensic reports by the districts/ Guwahati city commissionerate, thereby fast-tracking an investigation

“With this feature, experts in the FSL, immediately after completing their analysis and preparation of the expert’s opinion, can upload the report of the case in the e-FSL module after selecting the concerned district/ City Commissionerate in the dropdown menu. Subsequently, the report will be visible on the DashBoard of the concerned district/City Commissionerate,” an official statement here on Tuesday said.

A nodal officer of the rank of additional SP, who has been assigned an Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) ID, can download the reports.

“A three-layered OTP (one-time password) authentication has been enabled to ensure confidentiality and data integrity. The system generated OTPs will be received by the concerned police nodal officer on his CUG (closed-user group) mobile phone as well as on his official email,” the statement said.

“This will ensure timely receipt of FSL reports by the districts/ City Commissionerate and can help in early completion of investigation,” it added.

In the existing system, once the report is ready for dispatch, FSL writes to the districts concerned to collect the reports. Thereafter, a constable from the respective district visits the FSL and brings the report physically.

“This consumes several weeks of valuable time. Further due to communication gaps, the reports keep lying at FSL for months, delaying the investigation,” the statement said.

“In some cases, filing of charge-sheets was delayed due to non-receipt of FSL reports and as a result the accused got statutory bail. However, with the introduction of this new system, such problems can be prevented,” it said.

Assam DGP inaugurated the facility at the DGP headquarters in Guwahati on Tuesday.

Assam is the first state in the country to develop this facility using the ICJS platform.

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