Chasing criminals: Defective fingerprints declined suddenly in 2024

Despite advances like the Abhigyan app, 13% of fingerprint submissions to NAFIS between 2012 and 2023 were flagged as defective

Union Home Minister Amit Shah last week unveiled the “Abhigyan” app at the All India Fingerprint Conference, enabling field officers to scan thumbprints on portable devices for real-time identification of crime suspects. This digital push comes as records in the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Nafis) grew from 3.2 million in 2012 to 11.2 million in 2026. Data reveals that between 2012 and 2024, the police sent 11 million fingerprint slips to Nafis for verification.  During this period, 142 traces matched per thousand slips, but 11 per cent of all submissions were flagged as defective. The defective pieces rose from 10 per cent of total slips in 2013 to 39 per cent in 2023, but declined to 0.3 per cent in 2024, according to a report of the National Crime Records Bureau, which was released on Wednesday. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab accounted for the highest shares of these faulty prints. While Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra successfully reduced their defective submissions, Punjab remained the lone exception to this decline. Meanwhile, 2023 data shows that grievous hurt cases constituted 31 per cent of all fingerprint slips collected within the category of “Offences Against the Human Body”, theft made up 23 per cent under the “Offences Against Property” category, and NDPS Act cases accounted for 2.3 per cent under “Special and Local Laws”.