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36 | Science Reporter | February 2018
National Police Museum Revealing Crimes
K.N. Gupta
FEATURE ARTICLE
THE CBI Training Academy, Ghaziabad exudes an aura of honour and
respectability. The people frequenting this place have anything but
crooks and criminals on their mind.
But then you might just step into a room that is so different
from the everyday world. A cursory glance brushes past fi
ngerprints of Abraham Lincoln, the contents of the case filed by
the British against Bhagat Singh, the FIR of the Mahatma Gandhi
assassination case, forged signatures of former president of India
Giani Zail Singh and late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, fake copies
of currencies ranging from rupees one thousand to rupee one, a gun
shaped like a walking stick – all part of the topsy-turvy world of
cops and criminals. And thus one begins a tour of the National
Police Museum, dedicated to the Indian Police and Forensic
Science.
It also highlights the modus-operandi of the criminals, the
scientifi c-aids employed in investigation and detection of crime,
the latest techniques adopted by the Central and State Fingerprint
Bureau and so on. The exhibits have been acquired from different
states and central police organisations and world over through
INTERPOL and are both of Indian and Foreign origin.
With the opening of the National Police Museum by the Central
Bureau of Investigation, a new chapter has been added to the museum
movement in India. This is the fi rst attempt, and a commendable
one, to dedicate a museum to the Indian Police.
The National Police Museum was formally inaugurated by Shri Raja
Vijay Karan, the then Director CBI. Earlier called the CBI museum,
the DGPs/IGPs Conference held in the year 1984, decided to upgrade
this museum into a
National Police Museum. There is no admission fee. The museum is
closed on Saturdays and Sundays and other holidays. Photography is
allowed with prior permission.
The philosophy behind the Museum is to contribute its mite
towards a better understanding of the science of criminology. On
display are the methods used by both the law-breakers and law
keepers. So, while there are forged cheques on display along with
ultra-violet lamps that can detect forged entries, also on display
are rare paintings and their facsimiles which have been replicated
with much ingenuity and can sometimes even compete with the real
work.
The museum tries to answer some very pertinent questions: Why do
crimes take place and how? Who are the criminals and how are they
born? How can these crimes be prevented?
The National Police Museum consists of various exhibits on a
variety of subjects. There are brass medallion of the Japan
(Metropolitan Police Tokyo), Silver medallion of Mexico, and
plaques of the National Police Academy, Kenya Police, the Hague,
Denmark, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong Police.
A whole section has been devoted to a sizeable collection of
caps, badges, shoulder and lapel insignia – all from different
state police forces in India and abroad. Besides, there is an array
of
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February 2018 | Science Reporter | 37
cap and shoulder badges from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
and the ICPO.
The international Police flags include representations of
Chilean, Korean, Finnish, Austrian, Indonesian and US Police forces
as well as the ICPO/INTERPOL badges. Then there are the uniforms –
formal attires of police officers of different ranks of Central and
State police organisations, and from Kenyan, Ugandan, German and
Cyprus police forces and Nigeria Police.
The most interesting, however, is the Arms (Weaponry) section.
There are ancient guns and pistols, axes, bows, bulletproof vests,
helmets, bullets of different calibre used by security forces in
India. There are arms of the Mughal period and Medieval period such
as ‘Gupti’, ‘Katariun’ a weapon used by the tribals, pen type
pistol, watch-type revolver (country made), .303” country made gun
and other pistol/revolvers of different bores and calibres, country
made improvised pistol, hand made improvised long SBBL gun, country
made 2” mortar gun muzzle loading, pump type pistol, etc. The
replica of a hand grenade which was used in a plot to kill VIPs in
1970 is also worth mentioning.
The modern equipment on display include two-way mirrors,
portable folding road barriers, beam light burglar alarms, security
shock rods and the latest crowd control instrument which gives mild
shocks and emits
blinding light to temporarily control infuriated mobs.
In the Counterfeit Currency Notes and Coin section, there are
forged currency notes from Rs 100 to Rs. 1 and genuine notes of
higher denominations of Rs. 10,000, Rs. 5,000, besides Rs. 1 to Rs.
100 and counterfeit coins of
different denominations. There are also counterfeit foreign
currency exhibits including British Postal Order and U.S. Dollars.
One rupee coins with King Georg VI picture, one rupee coin with
Queen Victoria pictures, eight anna coins, four anna and two annas
coins are also exhibited. Specimens of genuine notes (without
number) of different denominations are made available by the
Reserve Bank of India.
In the Counterfeiting Equipment Section, there are sturck dies
with iron frames for counterfeiting one rupee coins, metal block
for forging ten rupee, five rupee and one rupee notes, moulds for
manufacturing one rupee counterfeit coins, crucible for melting
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coins, rexel numbering machine made in England used for
numbering forged currency notes and such other equipments for
counterfeiting notes and coins of different denominations. Such
methods are now outdated because of the quality of the genuine
currency notes and
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38 | Science Reporter | February 2018
use of sophisticated detection methods. The antiques section
exhibits idols
of white marble stone dating back to the 11th Century AD, red
stone idols and several other pieces of rare antiques. Presently
only such pieces of antiques have been exhibited in the museum
wherein cases have already been decided by the courts.
There are photographs of forged as well as genuine signatures of
VVIPs, such as Shri Giani Zail Singh (the then President of India)
and Smt. Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister.
There are also very important Urdu Hukumnamas. There are
photographs of important FIRs written in Urdu, such as, FIR
concerning assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (FIR No. 68/48) dated
30-01-48 u/s 302 IPC against Nathu Ram Godse and against one of the
torch-bearers of the Indian freedom struggle, Shahid Bhagat Singh
(FIR No. 113/29) dated 8-4-1929 u/s 307 IPC.
Under the Crime Section there are charts relating to crimes
under different heads – house breaking implements, wall clock (40
tolas of gold concealed inside) and wrist watches, shoes used for
concealing gold jewellery, battery cells (with six to seven pieces
of wrist watches concealed in each cell), cycle forks and other
apparatus used for smuggling gold and gold ornaments, etc.
The museum also consists of exhibits like portable fingerprint
kit and photographs of forged High School Certifi cates,
photographs of re-use of court fee Stamps and Postal Stamps.
Under the section cheats and dacoits, there are photographs of
Natwar Lal, Babu Gujar, Gabbar, Putli Bai and Rukhmiya.
The Fingerprints and Photographs Section is also informative.
Photos
of two sets of fi nger impressions of a pair of twins, forged fi
ngerprints on an otherwise immaculately worded will (detection of
which saved legal heirs from being deprived of ancestral property),
finger and palm print of famous personalities like Shah Jahan and
Sir William Herschel are all there.
One also fi nds photos of the Bertillon system of identifi
cation, explanation of the effect of plastic surgery on mutilated
fi ngerprints and some other interesting cases of identifi cation.
There are charts and boards displaying infamous cases where the
police have successfully matched wits with cunning criminals and
unscrupulous killers, like the exhibits regarding the murder of the
Chopra children in 1978. On display are the fi ngerprints of the
murderers – Billa and Ranga, the number plates of the car they used
for the crime, photographs of hair on the clothes of the victims
and in the car, and other evidence the police dug up to nail the
culprits.
A look at the items on display in the Museum conveys the
painstaking efforts of the police forces to unearth culprits,
murderers, terrorists and smugglers. But perhaps, more important is
the message it conveys to the public – that without their
involvement and help, the police can make little headway in
ensuring the execution of law and order.
The National Police Museum dedicated to the Indian Police is
located in the CBI Training Academy, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad
(UP).
Mr Kailash Nath Gupta is Supdt. of Police, CBI (Retd.) and Sr.
Supdt. of Police (Retd.), National Human Rights Commission. He is
also a President of India Awardee. Address: D1A/115, Janak Puri,
New Delhi-110058; Email: [email protected]