CRIME INVESTIGATION
Art or Science?
Prof Dr P .Chandra Sekharan
For the past five decades and more, I have in the main been involved with scientific investigation of crime and during that time have dealt with every case referred to me, and so can claim to have served in an outstandingly successful profession–if only its productivity were judged by the increase in the number of cases I had handled over the years. As yet, no one (criminologist) has thought of putting an end to that particular gloss on our crime figures. But unpleasant increase in crime and violence in our society are forcing present day criminology pundits into very odd mental contortions and it is not impossible that some enlightened criminologist will eventually propound the thesis that a growth in criminality is an index of progress in civilization. The Indian cinema, more specifically Tamil cinema has already very proudly propounding such thesis.
It is in such a scenario I venture to analyse whether crime investigation is art or science. Crime has been part of our society since the first man stood up and walked and it would be foolish to believe that it will ever disappear or even be controlled. But the main problem in crime detection is one of sheer magnitude of the crime and the very high societal status of perpetrators.
Fraud Investigation
Take for example the investigation of fraud and nowadays unlike before has dramatic effects on our society thanks to the extensive media coverage. It is infinitely easier to open a bank account in any part of the world than to break open a bank vault; it is much easier to obtain crores of rupees by fraud than to break into a jewellery shop or hijack an armoured van carrying currency notes. The rewards are often higher, whilst the chances of prosecution and the severity of punishment are less.
Spectrum frauds
Consider the spectrum frauds dispersing around.
The term ‘spectrum’, more technically ‘radiofrequency spectrum’ or RF spectrum typically refers to the full frequency range from 3 kHz to 300 GHz that may be used for wireless communication.
The ‘radio frequency spectrum’ is a limited natural resource. Radio waves are governed by laws of physics and travel with the speed of light. Radio waves cannot be confined to national boundaries or specific areas. Like any other natural resource, it cannot be owned but can only be managed and shared amongst various countries, services, users, technologies etc.
Spectrum as property
Under US law, the spectrum is not considered to be the property of the private sector nor of the government except insofar as the term "government" is used to be synonymous with "the people".
But most countries consider RF spectrum as an exclusive property of the state. The RF spectrum becomes a national resource, much like water, land, gas and minerals. Unlike these, however, RF is reusable.
Spectrum Management
Spectrum management is the process of regulating the use of radio frequencies to promote efficient use and gain a net social benefit. It requires knowledge of an unusually wide range of disciplines: physics, engineering, economics, law, policy and regulation. It is also a field where accepted practices are changing rapidly. Technological developments mean increasing demand for spectrum for an ever widening range of applications. This has resulted in a growing pressure to replace traditional technical approaches to spectrum management with a more market-orientated approach.
Spectrum Auction
Increasing demand for services such as mobile telephones and many others has required changes in the philosophy of spectrum management. The former practice of discrete bands licensed to groups of similar services is giving way, in many countries, to a "spectrum auction" model that is intended to speed technological innovation and improve the efficiency of spectrum use.
The spectrum resources should be treated like land, i.e. private ownership of spectrum portions should be permitted. The allocation of these portions should be implemented by means of market forces. The spectrum owners should be able to trade these portions in secondary markets. Alternatively, the spectrum owners would be able to use their bands in any way they want through any technology they prefer (service and technology neutrality).
S-band scam
The spectrum property rights may potentially lead to artificial scarcity and the hold-up problem. The hold-up problem refers to the difficulty in aggregation of the spectrum resources (which would be required for high bandwidth applications), as the individual spectrum owners could ask for very high compensation in return of their contribution. Such a contingency would arise by the blanket Antrix-Devas agreement for the exclusive use of and free access to S-band on two Geostationary Satellites for 12 years (or full life span) on 24 hour, seven-day-per- week basis. (Those who would like to have a detailed understanding about ‘spectrum and spectrum management’ can have a read from the addendum appended to this paper.)
RF spectrum management is treated as a natural monopoly as there is generally one regulator for any RF band. The S band is used by weather radar, surface ship radar, and some communications satellites, especially those used by NASA to communicate with the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. The 10-cm radar short-band ranges roughly from 1.55 to 5.2 GHz.
The stand of politicians was amiss
When such a practice was in vogue internationally for many years, it is strange why government of India in its department of space, never realised that S-band has to be used exclusively for defence, paramilitary forces, railways and other national needs such as public utility services and country’s strategic needs and on the contrary agreed to allocate its exclusive use to the private agency (Devas) even before the two satellites were launched.
It is indeed a moot point whether our politicians (both administrators and critics), unless they are technocrats, would be able to understand and appreciate either spectrum or its management, however clever they may be in filling their coffers.
Technocrats are at the fray
I don’t think that the political masters who have very little knowledge on these strategic issues unless briefed by technocrats could be blamed for the sad state of affairs. The technical managers who were at the helm of affairs in space organisation, ISRO and Antrix are to be blamed squarely for entering into a high value deal with strategic and security implications with Devas and above all keeping the deal a secret. At least if there had been a debate among the numerous defence experts and strategists who are involved in defence studies and research in many universities in the country, the calamity could have been averted.
It is a national shame that the Department of Space had withheld the vital information that the two satellites GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A are being built for Devas, a private company with foreign links. I think it would now be the top priority of the Government of India to revamp and reconstitute all the organisations connected with space and spectrum management.
Let loose of technocrats
There is another reason for high rated corruption in S-band or similar high-tech scam pointing to “the policy of the Government in packing off the knowledgeable technocrats working in these vulnerable
departments simply on superannuation”. “Retiring scientists and technocrats on age criteria alone will be a great loss and detrimental to the ongoing research and technical projects in organisations such as ISRO. These technocrats who would not only be endowed with all the secrets and intricacies of their work but also be fully ripe with expertise and experience, still having links with their parent body will join private organisations or start similar companies, for
example as it happened with Devas.
In fact the government should stipulate some retirement conditions restricting such technocrats joining private companies to make use of the technical expertise they gained when they were with the government. Of course the monetary benefits for such technocrats after retirement shall be in commensurate with their expertise. Allowing working scientists from ISRO to serve in Boards of private company is another reason for the scam. It is evident the retired technocrats and serving ones colluded to hoodwink the administrators including ministers who, at the respective time frame as laymen, may have little knowledge about the importance as well as the technical details of S-band”.
“Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had very wisely made Atomic Energy projects as government monopoly. I wonder why ‘space and spectrum’ also should not become government monopoly.” Research in this area can of course be left to academicians.
Investigators of spectrum scam
The officers involved in the investigation of spectrum scam have to be highly trained, experienced cops with expert knowledge in an immense range of police skills in the legal and regulatory aspects of spectrum management in addition to their basic skills in crime investigation. They need also to possess a basic knowledge of commercial practice and legislation including international banking, accountancy, book-keeping, bankruptcy, company law, law and practice of liquidations and an insight into computer and internet operations. A complicated case such as spectrum fraud may take a batch of officers months or even years before a successful conclusion is reached.
Can we call then crime investigation is more of science than art? Nay, more than the scientific knowledge prescribed above, the officers should have a flair (natural talent) for crime investigation especially in the initial stages of interrogation in which they need to ask questions in order to elicit information. In crime investigation information is the raw material of the business. I can say with authority that, during the last eight years, until May 5, 2010 the questioning skill (interrogation) of Indian Police was at its bottom whence they straightaway passed on the buck to the ignominious narco tests which led to misinformation.
Answers to questions are the easy part, asking the right question is the difficulty and indeed it is an art attributable to the flair the investigator is endowed with.
Can we say then crime investigation is both art and science?
‘The forensic scientist, like the detective can only be as good as the next case. We (the crime investigators) must therefore maintain an objective and enquiring approach at all times with a willingness to innovate and adapt to new techniques whenever appropriate’ said Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, L. Byford during 1980s.
The investigation of Aarushi Murder case
Now if we look at the police handling of the infamous major crime such as Arushi murder, certain basic defects in the investigation may come to surface.
I was waiting for the media’s angry diatribe against the Central Bureau of Investigation and the local police supposed to maintain law and order in New Okhla Industrial Development Authority [NOIDA] bordering our national capital region of New Delhi to subside in connection with the botch up of the Aarushi murder case.
Now, as a professional forensic scientist, I will attempt to dissipate the needless noxious fumes of suspense surrounding this tale and take the nation directly to the nub of the matter.
Undoubtedly, the handling the murder of the teenaged innocent looking girl Aarushi initially by the NOIDA police and later by the CBI are crying shames raised to the power of infinity as all of them worked with a single criminal intention of saving the perpetrators right from the beginning while pretending to do otherwise.
Bogus techniques of narco-analysis, lie detector-tests, brain-mapping and other varieties of abracadabra marketed by two Indian psychologists of dubious distinction, as expected contorted the compounded confusion.
The time-line of Aarushi case
May 16, 2008
• Aarushi Talwar (15), daughter of a dentist couple doctors Rajesh and Nupur, was found dead with her throat slit in the bedroom of their flat Jalvayu Vihar located in NOIDA.
• The Talwars promptly name the missing domestic help of Nepalese extraction – Yam Prasad Banjade alias Hemraj (45) as the prime suspect.
May 17, 2008
• Hemraj's body found on the terrace of Talwars’ residence with bloodstains and multiple wounds by a retired police officer relative of the Talwars!!
• Police Station Officer (P.S.O.) Dataram Nauneria transferred for botching up the investigation.
• Television channels quote the chapter and verse of the autopsy report that ruled out sexual assault.
• Nobody mentions the discovery a white discharge from the vagina of Aarushi, nobody thinks of sending its swab for forensic testing.
May 18, 2008
• Media quotes police officials pointing to the foul deeds’ commission with ‘surgical precision’.
• Superintendent of Police Mahesh Mishra transferred.
May 19, 2008
• A new suspect – Talwars’ former Nepalese domestic help Vishnu Sharma is named!
May 21, 2008
• Delhi Police officials inform the media that the crimes were committed either by a ‘doctor or a butcher’.
May 22, 2008
• Suspecting a ‘honour killing’ NOIDA cops question Aarushi's close friend with whom the victim had 688 conversations in separate phone calls within the time span of 45 days preceding the murder.
May 23, 2008
• Aarushi's father Dr. Rajesh Talwar arrested for the double-murder.
June 2008
• The Central Bureau of Investigation was entrusted the job of investigating the murders.
• Immediately, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati ordered the transfers of all senior police officers who were part of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the matter.
• The marching orders recipients included NOIDA Senior Superintendent of Police, Satish Ganesh and Meerut Range Inspector General Gurdarshan Singh.
• Much later, the deputation of CBI officer Arun Kumar, formerly a member of the Uttar Pradesh Police, who was in charge of the investigation also ended July, 2008.
• Rajesh Talwar, his wife Nupur Talwar, Krishna alias Kishen his Nepalese compounder of Dr. Rajesh Talwar, Vijay Mandal and Raj Kumar domestic aides of the Talwars’ neighbours arrested by CBI undergo polygraph and Narco Analysis and psychological assessment tests at Forensic Laboratories in Bangalore and in New Delhi besides the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at different times.
• CBI discloses discovery of ‘vital evidence’ from Krishna’s personal effects curiously seized from a shed located in the Talwar home!
• Throughout the month repeated bail pleas made by the accused were rejected.
July 2008-December 2010
• The CBI had all and sundry, suspects and otherwise, in custody, did multiple scopolamine tests, produced zilch.
• The alibis of the parents were floated in the media and then those too went up in smoke.
• Worse, ‘evidence’ submitted for DNA analysis in Hyderabad were proven to be fabricated!
• Meanwhile, Nepalese politicians threatened to sue the CBI for inhumanly torturing their nationals to save the real murderers – the Talwars!
• Slowly all the accused were let off on bail.
January 2011
• Finally, CBI washes its hands off the case and files a closure report.
• The spreading of a vile rumour through the media that the Talwars’ [Aarushi’s parents] domestic help Hemraj was ‘missing’ from the crime scene and therefore, the obvious killer is pathetically deliberate, suspicious and a totally amateurish attempt and a dead giveaway.
The check list
Here is a check list that would prove to anyone beyond any doubt that the whole thing is as phoney as a seven and a half rupee note:
[a] The entrance of the Talwars’ residence was not forced open and therefore, the killer had the keys
[b] The parents ruled out an honour killing and the local police ruled out a sexual crime
[c] The body of the second victim was found nearly 24 hours after the discovery of the first bloody body on the next floor of the crime scene and a trail of blood stains were found leading right from the same floor as the first body was discovered by a retired police officer and a relative of the Talwars
[d] The local police could not have been so plainly and stupidly dumb to overlook a bloody corpse at the scene of crime and allow its discovery a day later
[e] The substitution of material sent for DNA analysis establishes complicity on the part of the local and the federal investigators.
And finally
[f] Clearly, neither Aarushi nor Hemraj created a new style of hara-kiri and committed new version of the Japanese Samurais’ suicide called Seppuku
My deductions
So, here are my deductions on the basis of evidence available so far and suggestions to solve this perfidy – if not for anything else, at least to restore the confidence of the people of India on the Central Bureau of Investigation:
1. The body of Hemraj was planted on the Talwars’ residence with the complicity of the local police and the Talwars themselves.
Therefore, step one: Immediate suspension of the local police officers who investigated the case and questioning in an open magistrate’s court about this anomaly by a smart criminal lawyer.
The queries should dwell at length about their opinions about the ‘dressing up the crime scene’ since the CBI has alleged it seriously in its closure report.
If needed, the personnel can be arrested and proceeded against later.
2. The evidence submitted to the DNA labs in Hyderabad were obviously substituted with fake material.
Therefore, step two: All the officials and personnel concerned ought to be summarily suspended and issued with a show cause notice as to why they should not be summarily dismissed besides being proceeded against criminally for suppressing vital material evidence in a double murder case.
3. The CBI is clearly aware that the Supreme Court has thrown the book at all sorts of Narco-Analysis, polygraph and other truth serum type unscientific tests.
Therefore, step three: Sack the officials who ordered this nonsense or proceed against them too for wanton and wilful dereliction of duty with criminal intent.
Hand over the case to an impartial team of retired officials from the same IPS set up – this time employ persons of impeccable credentials. Disband all the narco-analysis labs and declare all pseudo scientific tests illegal.
Lest, the media can boldly clamour for the same injection and slapping treatment for former union minister A Raja, the former CMs of Maharashtra and Suresh Kalmadi to uncover the truths in the 2G Spectrum, Adarsh and CWG scams respectively so that fear within the powerful can move several mountains all at once.
4. Aarushi spoke to her close friend 688 times in the 45 days preceding her murder.
Therefore step 4: It is a matter of public knowledge that all calls are recorded internationally these days in and retained in cyberspace servers to curb terrorism. The government of India can apply and the get the recording of these conversations with the proper letter rogatory issued from the relevant courts having jurisdiction.
That will prove beyond doubt from the lamentably dead child’s own conversation as to who could have killed her!
5. The dimensions of the injuries measuring about 8 x 3 cms identically on Aarushi and Hemraj was found matching with those of Dr Rajesh Talwar’s golf club recovered after considerable lapse of time. It was also found that Talwar was surfing the internet till 11.50 pm while Aarushi was being murdered between midnight and 1 am. Just as all phone calls are recorded, the internet service provider in this case too would have a record of what he surfed. A simple subpoena would be enough for that record to be produced in court.
Therefore step 5: On the basis of the downloaded stuff by Dr Talwar, subject him to intense questioning in a judicial magistrate’s court by experts in forensics, murder weapons, wounds et al. Neither can Dr Talwar ever allege torture or can insist on silence in court because, he and his wife after all had subjected themselves to drugged questioning in the past by dubious persons. This time, if the couple is truly innocent, what would stop them from being questioning in an open court? Of course, they can insist on silence. But then, that would let the cat out of the bag, wouldn’t it?
While I welcome all types of scientific forensic psychology, I hate pseudoscientific procedures practiced and marketed by criminal charlatans.
Forensic Psychiatric Evaluation
If need be, the accused can be subjected to internationally credible Forensic Psychiatric Evaluations standardised vide the Stanford-Binet and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
In her famous novel Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie’s ace detective Hercule Poirot discovers the cleverly executed crime by all concerned in a train. In that case, all the VIPs jointly execute the crime but the clever Poirot discovers the motive and the perpetrators.
Moily’s concern
I second Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily’s concern and agree with his yen to find the truth. Now, with what I have provided above, it would be child’s play for the Government of India to find out the truth. But, most importantly there is a question to be answered before that. Is the Government of India ready, willing and able to do so and restore the nation’s confidence in the CBI?
The problems of crime and crime investigation have troubled society since the beginning of mankind, and despite the potential of the several sophisticated gadgets and computer, I am certain they will continue to do so until the end of our existence. It is not impossible that some enlightened academic will eventually propound the thesis that a growth in criminality is an index of progress in civilization!
Can we improve matters?
I have a simple solution to improve matters. An attempt should be made within the Forensic Science Service to ensure that all reporting forensic scientists have an opportunity to become involved with the practical day-to-day police operations which their work is intended to support. Similarly all investigating police officers should have a compulsory internment in forensic institutions both medical and scientific.
Their mutual attachment for short periods could prove highly beneficial to both police and scientists in improving the standards of crime investigation and prevent fudging of records by forensic experts as happened in Sister Abaya Case of Kerala and CBI controlled Forensic Science Laboratory in Delhi.
Such an incident had never happened in the Forensic Sciences Department, Chennai, I can vouchsafe with authority, as long as I headed that department. But alas, it did happen in that very department after I left, when an expert in biology clandestinely extended his tentacles in document examination and forged official reports. Nevertheless I must compliment the Government of Tamil Nadu for efficiently detecting the forgery and dismissing the expert from service. One thing is true that the all pervading and ever prevailing corrupt practices had already encroached forensics as well.
Conclusion
The detection of crime will exercise the minds of mankind, especially criminologists forever. It will provide the pundits with an infinite source of research for their revelations, the media men and fiction writers with an unending supply of material for entertainment, but more significantly the Police and Forensic Service with a never ending challenge. Without challenge any setup is bound to stagnate and die. This may be cold comfort, perhaps, for my brethren in overstretched criminology and forensics.
Let me end my discussion by quoting what Sherlock Holmes had said in ‘The Sign of Four’
“Detection is or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner...How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be truth.”
The CBI is yet to learn their lessons.
Addendum : What is spectrum?
