System in place to ensure 30k youth become forensic experts annually from 2025: Amit Shah

STATE TIMES NEWS

Ahmedabad: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said the Central government has put in place a system to ensure 30,000 youth become forensic experts annually from 2025 to meet the country’s requirements. The new criminal law — Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita — makes it mandatory for collection of evidence at the crime scene by a ‘forensic expert’ in all offences punishable by imprisonment of seven years or more, Shah said after inaugurating the campus of Narnarayan Shastri Institute of Technology (NSIT) at Jetalpur in Ahmedabad district. To prepare in advance for the new laws — Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita — the government set up National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) in 2020 to meet the requirement of forensic experts to serve the country, Shah said. The NSIT, being managed by Swaminarayan Vividh Seva Niketan Trust, is affiliated to NFSU. “Thousands of experts will be required when the visit of forensic science officers to every crime scene becomes mandatory. We brought the laws in 2024, but began preparation for it in 2020 when we set up NFSU, so that every year from 2025 onwards, 30,000 youths get ready as forensic science experts to serve the country,” he said. NFSU was elevated as a national university from state university and accorded a status of an institution of national importance from October 1, 2020. Shah said while Congress ruled the country for 70 years, it allowed the criminal justice system to run on laws made by the British Parliament. The laws were made by the British to rule India and not to ensure justice to her people, Shah said. “When I stood up to present the three laws in the Parliament, the opposition questioned what was new in them without even studying them. In the new laws, the focal point is the people of the country, its women and daughters. This is a new beginning to ensure justice as per Indian judicial tradition,” he said. The new criminal laws make it mandatory to collect evidence at the crime scene by a ‘forensic expert’ in all offences punishable by imprisonment of seven years or more, Shah said. By training students in forensic science, NSIT will become a part of the entire judicial system, he said.