Giving guns a sight

By Lakshmi Balakrishnan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 4.

Picture this. The Mumbai police receives almost 8,000 bullets annually for identification of the firearm that they belong to. And since scientific investigation is not really the strong point of our investigative agencies, in most cases the final report often ends up as nothing more than a post mortem.

But for the Forensic Technology Incorporated, a Canada-based company, the very idea of ``waiting'' to find such minute details is absurd and outdated. After all, this is one company that boasts of inventing a system that can give you complete details of any licensed gun and its owner with the help of just the bullet. And that too in just a minute.

Having made a name for themselves in ballistic imaging technology, the Forensic Technology Incorporated (FTI) is now venturing into the Indian market. Almost a standardised form of technology used in the U.S. now, the FTI provides four kinds of services in firearm identification.

This includes the Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS) that can capture data from bullets, whether pristine or damaged; Rapid Brass Identification (RBI) that consists of a portable image acquisition station for cartridge cases; Gunsights, a computer based reference that allows rapid and accurate identification of firearms made by law enforcement professionals; and Matchpoint, that will provide a firearm examiner direct access to all correlated cases that are stored in the IBIS system.

Gunsights also includes detailed information and photographs of old as well as new firearm models, including the 100 most frequently used firearms in the U.S. While the system is priced a at a whopping one million dollars, the company will be holding a demonstration of its products at the All India Science Forum on Friday.

According to the South-East Asian representative of the company Mohd Nayeem, the company has already received proposals from agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, Mumbai police and other State police departments. ``Till now India had been a silent partner of foreign agencies in solving crime. But with installation of this system in even one State, various State police departments will be able to cooperate more easily and quickly,'' said Mohd Nayeem.

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