How AI helped Odisha’s Jharsuguda Police catch rape accused who ‘killed’ complainant

The woman, who had accused him of rape when she was still a minor, had gone missing from her aunt’s house earlier month, and a police complaint was filed on December 7.

“The deceased filed a rape case against the accused person in Dharuadihi police station in Sundargarh district under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO). He was arrested on August 27, 2023 and was released on bail on December 4, 2023. The accused believed that he would be convicted if the deceased gave a statement in court and hatched the plan to kill her,” Jharsuguda SP Smit Parmar told The Indian Express.

Significantly, the suspect and the survivor had allegedly known each other previously and were also in touch after his release on bail. Police claim that the suspect had to appear at a court hearing on December 15 and had been trying to convince the survivor to give a favourable statement but she had refused to relent.

“Then, the accused and one of his associates planned to commit the crime and even bought a knife for the purpose,” the officer said.

The plan, according to the police, was to lure the survivor from her aunt’s house in Jharsuguda, and take her on a motorcycle to NH143. There, her throat was slit, she was cut and disposed of. According to the police, the suspect had even changed his bike’s number plates and other identifiers such as stickers and also wore a helmet throughout.

What he didn’t count on, however, was police using the AI feature in Jharsuguda’s Smart City CCTV system. According to the police, when the photo of the missing girl was fed into the system, police found images of her on a two-wheeler with two men.

The system then helps peruse police records to narrow down a list of suspects, helping the police zero in on Kisan.

“Using technical forensics and CCTV footage of neighbouring areas, Kunu Kisan of Lefripada police station was traced and was brought to the police station. During interrogation, the accused confessed that he had killed the missing girl and disposed of her body after cutting it into small parts,” SP Parmar said.

Police and forensic teams, with assistance from divers of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF), helped collect the scattered pieces of her body, which was then eventually identified.

A DNA test will be done to scientifically establish the identity of the deceased, the officer said.