While a team of policemen sweat it out in the field to nab absconding criminals, a separate team of dedicated Delhi Police personnel are constantly on their toes behind the scene. The team, comprising ten members, works round-the-clock in different shifts to prepare portraits of suspects. Members of this unit are specially trained by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
They may have the luxury to remain seated in office unlike their colleagues, but face tough time in preparing the sketches. Their biggest challenge is to extract accurate description of the accused from witnesses or victims, who are generally traumatised and can many times not describe properly.
This team of the Crime Branch sits at Kamla Market Police Station and has prepared 425 sketches of various suspects, this year. In the past, the sketches were drawn by professional artists.
The police would engage the experts on assignment basis. However, the Delhi Police has re-invented its portrait making unit by introducing state-of-the-art technology. The policemen can get the sketch of a suspect prepared in flat fifteen minutes, whereas earlier it would take three-four hours and still not get desirable results. The new software has obliterated the error quotient of the previous method and the portraits now being prepared are found 90 per cent correct.
The transition has taken place over a period of 16 years or so. Earlier the sketches were made manually, but now everything seems a click away. It used to take around four to prepare a hand-made sketch, and the biggest disadvantage was that if the victim wanted to change anything at the end of the sketch, the whole process had to be repeated from scratch. However, this is not the case with the new system now. The biggest advantage is that it saves a lot of time. The sketches are then coloured to make them more identifiable.
Inspector in-charge Shivaji explained that the software 'Pehchan Pro' has been bought from a Gujarat-based company. "The best part about the software is that the components instilled in it are of Indian race and therefore, the features of each sketch is like the Indian faces. The size of each component can be adjusted vertically and horizontally so as to get a perfect look," he said.
The components are plenty in number, including 400 hairstyles, 130 headshapes, 616 eyebrows, 361 eyes, 705 lips, 693 nose, 523 jawshapes, 150 beards, 175 moustaches, 122 glass wears, 70 head wears, 34 eyelines, 40 forehead lines, 45 chin lines and 59 smile lines.
Sub-Inspector Neelam Yadav, who supervises the portrait making team, said that for rape victims or people who have witnessed a murder, the trauma hits them hard and a healthy environment as well as rapport-building is needed to get the accurate sketch made. "Children have a strong memory and can recall every minute detail. In case of rape victims, we make sketches in an isolated environment so that they do not feel odd," she said.
A few officers revealed that the only problem is in terms of credibility. Even if the sketch made by us has helped to nab the accused; we don't know it most of the time and sometimes get to know only through the media. The success story rate is quite good. Most of the sketches made here match up to the actual person. The quadruple murder in Vivek Vihar, which took place in August 2013, was solved because of the sketch of Mona prepared by Constable Virender.