Digital pen for filing FIR

New Delhi, Apr 17 (UNI) The next time you file a complaint at a police station, you could be writing it with a digital pen.

The 'digital pen and paper technology' is to be introduced in three police stations in Mumbai in a year under a pilot project of the Union Science and Technology Ministry.

The digital pen, which writes like any normal pen, has a camera inside taking digital pictures as the pen rolls on the paper for storing electronically. The imported pen costs about Rs 8,000 in the local market.

''The digital pen technology will make any subsequent changes in the complaint impossible,'' Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told a news conference today.

An agreement has been signed with the Mumbai Police for using the technology in Gamdevi, Malabar Hill and L T Marg police stations to begin with.

The Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which is coordinating the technology development for the digital pen, says the project will be ready for implementation after 12 months. From there, it will be up to the users to decide when to use it.

''Any state police can use the technology if they wish to do so,'' said IFAC Executive Director Prof. Anand Patwardhan.

The digital pen is one of the four projects for ''synergising science and technology with judicial processes'' currently pursued by TIFAC under an apex committee headed by eminent jurist Fali S Nariman.

Another is a Brain Finger Printing technique to read the mind of a suspected criminal, which is being developed for implementation in Delhi and Gujarat.

Yet another project is in association with the Bangalore Police for bringing portable computing to crime scenes for retrieval of significant data.

The fourth project, with the Gujarat and Dehi High Courts, is for creating an audio-visual archive to help appeal courts with court room recordings of sessions courts.

''This will revolutionise the criminal judicial system,'' said Mr Sibal.

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