Fingerprint on the move: New criminal tracking system makes nabbing suspects easier for Bengaluru police

Bengaluru: The Mobile Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (MCCTNS), implemented by the Bengaluru police 18 months ago, is delivering "ground-breaking" results in preventive policing.

The MCCTNS aids the police in nabbing absconding suspects, tracing people with non-bailable warrants issued by courts, and finding those listed in the Long Pending Register (LPR).

In addition to these crimes, the system has proven valuable in solving cases of extortion and robbery, as well as preventing immediate crimes like house break-in thefts (HBT) and motor vehicle thefts (MVT).

On May 11, the Basavanagudi police raided a bar and used the MCCTNS to scan the visitors’ fingerprints, leading to the capture of Chetan, an accused in an attempted murder case at the Hoskote police station. A court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Chetan for missing court sessions for over two years.

MCCTNS allows real-time searches of criminal databases maintained by the Karnataka police.

Since deploying the system in September 2022, the Bengaluru police have scanned the fingerprints of 16,95,185 people. As many as 14,847 people were found with criminal backgrounds, while 16,80,338 had no criminal record.

More than the numbers, senior police officials said the real success of the technology is its ability to significantly speed up background checks, allowing for faster and more informed decisions.

Bengaluru City Police Commissioner B Dayananda said in the pre-MCCTNS days, police detained people found on the streets at odd hours or behaved suspiciously. While detention and background checks were a cumbersome process, police found themselves in a spot if the detainees were found to be innocent. Also, it amounted to unnecessary harassment of innocent people.

"With MCCTNS, we can now check people’s criminal histories in an instant,” the city top cop told DH. “This has brought down the long process of verification to just a fingerprint test. We can now do more background checks without feeling hesitant.”

So successful is the technology that the city police, who are using the state criminal database, are now asking for the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), maintained by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Accessing NAFIS will enable the city police to use fingerprint identification on people from outside Karnataka.

DCP (Whitefield) Shivakumar Gunare said with NAFIS, they can do more checks in their authority as the area is heavily populated with people from different states.

"We have mostly IT professionals and working-class people in our jurisdiction,” he told DH. “People who do night shifts and return home late are also more in number. So are the street crimes. We can do better preventive policing equipped with NAFIS data." 

In the Whitefield jurisdiction, 457 with criminal antecedents has been traced using MCCTNS.

How it works 

1) Officers use a fingerprint scanner connected to a device linked to the criminal database.

2) When someone's fingerprints are scanned, the system displays any existing criminal records for that individual.

3) If no records are found, it shows no result.

4) Importantly, no personal data, including the fingerprint itself, is recorded during this process.

At a glance 

Jurisdiction             Matches found  

Central                        1,226                           

West                            3,457

North                           3,525

South                           1,601

East                              2,392  

Northeast                    1,021

Southeast                    1,065

Whitefield                     457