Bangalore to get country’s 1st preventive forensics lab

MUMBAI: The brain, which can mastermind the most heinous of crimes, can also be ‘stimulated’ to give criminal intent away, say forensic scientists. This branch of forensics, which aims to prevent crimes rather than just solve them, is called preventive forensics.

Over the past eight years, more so after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States, preventive forensics has become a buzzword for security set-ups around the world. With the development of brain fingerprinting, it has become possible for investigators to extract information from a suspect’s brain involuntarily. Dr D Mohan of the Bangalore Forensic Science Laboratory explains that the human brain triggers an electrical response that begins 300 to 800 milliseconds after it is confronted with stimuli such as a picture, word, or phrase associated with information that may be stored in the brain. These electrical impulses can give suspects away.

The high rate of success of this non-invasive procedure makes it an ideal platform to develop gadgets for mass civilian profiling at airports and other public places.

The country’s first ever brain forensics centre, a laboratory that is expected to develop and perfect precisely such tools to prevent crimes, particularly terrorist strikes, is being set up in Bangalore.

Work on the laboratory, which was cleared by the central government two years ago, has finally begun with the government of Karnataka deciding to release the funds required. “Two days ago we were given the go-ahead by the state government to begin recruiting scientists currently working in laboratories across the country,” Mohan said. The scientists will be drawn from a variety of neurology specialisations like electro neurology and neuropsychology.