The thought police are here

Although many question the veracity of such a method, it is based on sound scientific principles. The suspect under investigation is seated and made to wear a cap with 32 electrodes. Out of these, two are attached to the ear lobes and the remaining 30 placed on different parts of the brain to measure electrical waves.

Unlike the polygraph test or narco-analysis, this non-invasive procedure — technically known as the Brain Electrical Oscillation Profiling (BEOS) test — does not require any verbal responses from the subject. Instead, the probe questions are designed to evoke the memory of the experience that the accused is suspected to have had. Simply put, remembering conceptual and experiential knowledge activate different regions of the brain.

The probe conducted on Aditi disclosed that she had enough ‘experiential knowledge’ about the poisoning death of her ex-boyfriend, Udit Bharati, to implicate her in the crime. Aditi was made to listen to neutral statements like the ‘sky is blue’ and others that alluded to the crime like ‘I bought arsenic’. And though Aditi did not speak aloud during this unconventional interrogation, she gave away enough information to be judged guilty largely on the basis of her ‘brain responses’ in a Maharashtra court of law. In June this year, she and her lover Pravin Khandelwal were found guilty for conspiring to murder Udit, a fellow student.

These days, forensic tools that ‘psychologically profile’ suspects are fast being used to achieve speedy convictions and in Aditi’s case, a 10-page judgement even upholds the validity of the tests. A total of 195 suspects have been subjected to polygraph tests, Brain Electrical Oscillation Profiling (BEOS) test, narco-analysis and others. Until August this year, 60 suspects have undergone polygraph, eight narco-analysis and more than 30 have been subjected to the BEOS test.

Dr Rukmani Krishnamurthy, outgoing director of the State Forensic Laboratory (SFL), says that the strongest official endorsement of the BEOS was when Sessions Judge S S Phansalkar Joshi upheld these tests and convicted Aditi on June 12 on the basis of this test in conjunction with polygraph results and the suspect’s psychological profile.

This test, explains Krishnamurthy, is programmed in such a way that it detects and differentiates between electrical activation related to conceptual and experiential knowledge. Probes are recorded in a computer and presented to the suspect, while the system analyses the electrical activation in the brain for the relevant question.

According to Krishnamurthy, “It was revealed in the BEOS that Aditi knew Udit was not happy about her affair with Pravin. She was found to have experiential knowledge of planning to murder Udit by giving him arsenic, going to the temple, collecting the prasad and lacing it with arsenic”.

The BEOS findings corroborated Aditi’s responses on the polygraph test, the Judge averred. So much so that the forensic experts from the FSL at Kalina, Mumbai, even presented a paper at the British Psychology Society’s seminar on BEOS.

Now, Maharashtra and Gujarat, have set up labs using BEOS for their prosecutors. Krishnamurthy who will retire as the director of SFL and take up her new appointment as the national forensic coordinator said that DNA fingerprinting labs will soon be opened at Pune, Aurangabad and Nashik forensic centres. A regional forensic lab has also been planned at Amravati. In the last couple of years new techniques like narco-analysis, brain fingerprinting, cyber forensics, tape authentication, speaker identification, forensic clinical toxicology and others have been introduced and the Government has spent at least Rs 70 crore on the main SFL and four regional labs.