Kathmandu, December 15

The Crime Investigation Department under Nepal Police said it had expedited the process of creating a central criminal database.

The CCD will be a proprietary database of records collected from throughout the country.

It would be a compilation of information about criminals and convicts under the jurisdiction of courts, law enforcement agencies, semi-judicial bodies and prisons.

According a senior official at the CID, the database will provide all its units with instant and direct access to criminal information to identify any absconding suspect or convict. It will also contain information about persons released after doing time in jail and those released on a general date.

Till date, one police unit is writing to all or any of its counterparts along with the details and other physical features of a crime suspect or absconding convict for his/her arrest. “Once the database is prepared, the concerned district police office or investigators can arrest anyone on the basis of information available on the database.

Criminal justice system should be based on instrumentation rather than interrogation,” he informed. It would also help police ascertain the identity of a target subject in a simple, easy, accurate, timely and scientific manner.

The database is expected to enhance the criminal justice system in the country. Various tiers of courts are yet to recover more than eight billion rupees in fines from convicts and execute over 100,000 years of jail terms handed down to them, according to statistics released by the Supreme Court.

CID will also collect fingerprints of persons on the basis of citizenship certificates they acquire from district administration offices and create the database for identification of anyone who is involved in crimes and is convicted.