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This sketch artist is the police’s best friend
PUNE: On August 14, a case of child molestation was registered at the Dattawadi police station in which a hand-drawn sketch of a rickshaw driver helped the police identify him after the CCTV failed in the dark of the night
PUNE: On August 14, a case of child molestation was registered at the Dattawadi police station in which a hand-drawn sketch of a rickshaw driver helped the police identify him after the CCTV failed in the dark of the night. On August 18, he was arrested and sent to prison. A search for the person who had drawn the sketch landed us at the office of professor Girish Charwad, 46, of the Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Fine Arts, Katraj. Charwad recently finished teaching a course in sketching suspects to the maiden batch at the criminal investigation division (CID) of Maharashtra located in Pune.
How did you start teaching at CID?
Answer: I was checking the acoustics in a hall built at the police research centre on the request of a police friend. While I was there, the recently transferred ADG CID Atulchandra Kulkarni was also present and my friend told him about the kind of work I do. ADG Kulkarni took interest and worked on the idea of starting a course in sketching suspects at CID. Of the first batch of 20 people, 18 completed the course recently and the second batch has begun two or three days ago. The CID has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) for the certification.
How did you start doing what you do?
Answer: In 1997, when I was in college, my friends and I were helping the police draw the sketch of a suspect. There were no mobile phones at the time so whoever was found did the job. My sketch came closest to the suspect and from that time, I started doing this off and on whenever the police required but all under the radar until 2002. In 2022, there was a spurt in brutal kidnappings and my work increased. D N Jadhav was the commissioner of police and Chandrashekhar Dethankar was the deputy commissioner of police back then. My work was appreciated by the then commissioner of police in a crime meeting and introduced to all police stations (till then, it was limited to a few police stations). As officers kept moving out, word of mouth kept spreading. Now I get called to various parts of Maharashtra to sketch suspects.
What are some of the memorable cases you have been involved in?
Answer: I have sketched extensively for the kidnappings in the early 2000s. There was a case of a deaf and dumb girl who was gang-raped in Bhosari, and several high-profile cases including some explosions and murders which I cannot talk about. I had sketched Sandesh alias Sainath Abhang (convicted of the murder of woman, 66, and rape and attempted murder of her five months’ pregnant daughter-in-law). There was a case of a body being left under the backseat of a bus, and the kidnapping of a four-month-old baby in Chakan. There was a case of a man who molested minor girls by asking them for directions. I have also sketched suspects in cases of chain snatching, robbery and dacoity.
Tell us about your qualifications.
Answer: I have completed a diploma in applied art, art teacher diploma (ATD), and diploma in art education [VERIFYING THE NAMES OF THESE DIPLOMAS FROM THE COLLEGE] from Abhinav college. Then I went on to pursue my MA in fine arts at the Babasaheb Ambedkar University in Aurangabad. I had always wanted to pursue a doctorate in a nice subject related to music, musicians, or the sarod as I play it. But my body of work in sketching suspects had built up so well that I pursued my PhD in the contribution of art to crime investigation (in Marathi) from Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University.
What kind of tools do you use, modern and traditional?
Answer: My work mostly involves drawing with hands. There are softwares that provide thousands of options for anatomical parts such as the lips, nose, eyebrows, chin, ears, eyes, etc. But the victims or witnesses are generally too shaken to choose between thousands of options. So, I use a simple pencil and paper. But with tools like tablet computers which provide for handmade sketches, we can choose drawings without hair, save them, and then proceed to draw the hair or facial hair etc. That would be a big step forward.
What are the challenges you face?
Answer: The dialogue with witnesses is the most difficult part mainly because of the sensitive state of mind that they are in. It was most difficult to communicate with the deaf and dumb girl who was gang-raped. Unfortunately, we had to make her mother ask her the questions in a manner that she understood. Asking little children about their abusers is another challenge. In cases where there are multiple accused, it is difficult to decipher whether the accused providing information is trying to mislead or not. If the crime has taken place at a particular time of the day, the sketch is best drawn at that time of the day and the location given the direction of light. At one time, I was playing the sarod at a concert and the police were waiting to take me for a sketch right afterwards. My fellow musicians had a lot of misconceptions when they saw two hawaldars escorting me hurriedly after the show. I had to explain to them that I had done nothing wrong.
