Kannur police 'follow in footsteps' of accused, use forensic gait analysis to uncover identity

Kannur: Culprits can cover their face and body to hide their identity while committing the crime; but what about the way they walk? Thalassery police have used Forensic Gait Analysis to confirm the identity of an accused involved in hurling a bomb at a house at Chalakkara in New Mahe. It's the first time in the district that the police have used gait analysis in an investigation.

On June 9, someone hurled an explosive at the house of Sanoop. The police received CCTV footage in which a man wearing a raincoat and a facemask was seen hurling a steel bomb and running away from the scene.

The police arrested one Arun in connection with the case on June 15. Though the cops had the visuals from CCTV, they were not enough to prove Arun's involvement as his face was not clear in the footage. This led the team to use forensic gait analysis for scientific evidence. "We need to have strong evidence against the accused in the case. The police have identified the movements of the accused with forensic equipment used to analyse the body movement and physical parameters. It was the first time Kannur police introduced this method to collect supportive evidence in a case,'' said Thalassery ASP Shahansha who led the investigation.

The police sent the data to the Forensic Lab in Ahmedabad as the state does not have the required forensic facility to analyse an accused's gait pattern. The result confirmed the culprit was Arun. Shahansha said that in many cases, suspects cover their faces to mask their identity from CCTV. The gait analysis would help identify culprits by comparing their walking patterns found in the footage.

An article on forensic gait analysis by Ashish Badiye, of the Government Institute of Forensic Science, Nagpur, Prachi Kathane, Neeti Kapoor and Kewal Krishan recalls that gait analysis entered the court in 1839 in London in the case of Thomas Jackson; he was identified by the witness due to his bowed left leg and walking with a limp. The gait analysis was used as a means of admissible evidence in criminal law in July 2000 at the Old Bailey Central criminal court when a jewellery thief was identified as the person attempting to rob a shop from old police surveillance footage. The technique was reportedly used in Karnataka to ascertain the identity of one of the accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case.