Portrait Building System for State CID soon

By Dheeraj Fartode :

CRIME Investigation Department (CID) of Maharashtra Police is getting ready with advanced Portrait Building System (PBS) to draw a perfect facial image of accused at large with the use of artificial intelligence. The system was first effectively used to construct portrait of the accused in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s murder case. A far advanced version of PBS will be in service in the State. Additional Director General (ADG) and Chief CID, Maharashtra, Atulchandra Kulkarni told ‘The Hitavada’ that the project would be rolled out in the State next month.

ADG CID Atulchandra Kulkarni

“It would help investigators to prepare perfect portraits of the accused based on the account given by the eyewitnesses,” said ADG Kulkarni. The PBS helps to extract face components like head, eye, nose, mouth, chin etc, described by witnesses, from the digitised portraits directory and assemble these components to construct face image of accused. The PBS uses artificial neurons which simulate human nervous system. These neurons are joined to form neural network on the basis of instructions made to the system.

It will also classify these image components on the basis of their shape, texture, colour and size and group them with descriptions and instructions. It uses advance image processing techniques like enhance, stretch, morph, integrate and rotate. The system also supports blurring to remove sharp edges to create pencil sketch which is useful for manual editing. By using colour PBS, the CID will assist the Investigating Officers of Maharashtra Police by preparing the portraits of the accused based on the account given by the eyewitnesses. “Currently, the cops are mostly using manual sketch drawing and various computer programmes to draw sketch of accused person.

However, end results of both the systems are not very much helpful in identifying the accused,” claimed a police officer. After introduction of advanced PBS, the end results would be 90 per cent similar to actual face of the accused,” the officer claimed. Along with Rajiv Gandhi murder case, the PBS also helped the law enforcement agencies to prepare the portrait of suspect in Bahadurgarh child abuse case in which minor girls between 5-9 years were sexually abused and later killed by the accused. It was also effectively used to construct the photographs of the accused in bomb blast cases in Mumbai and Delhi.

The CID has tied up with Savitribai Phule Pune University, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) and Bharati Vidyapeeth for development of the system. As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Pune University will provide advance training to police officers, VIT will give practical training with 3D software while Bharati Vidyapeeth will provide essential tools to the CID. On the lines of finger print department, the CID Maharashtra will start a new Portrait Department that would help investigators in developing portraits of accused persons.