Our criminal justice system needs a lot of improvements and this process can best be started with immediate updating of criminal procedural laws to bring them in line with modern needs and gradual shift to modern forensic science-based crime investigation.
This was stated by former Justice and Chairman SBR Appellate Tribunal Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui while speaking as the chief guest at ‘Specialized Certificate Course on Digital Forensics’ in a local hotel. The day-long course was arranged by the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto University of Law (SZABUL) in collaboration with the International Institute of Digital Forensic Science and Technology (IIDFST).
A batch of bankers, LEAs experts and Law graduate attended the hands-on training session conducted by Master Trainer Prof. Dr. Qamar-ul- Arifeen in a local hotel. SZABUL’s Registrar Sajjada Muhammad Shamim, Director Finance Amir Bashir and Chairman Department of Criminology Dr Jawed Aziz Masudi also spoke on the occasion.
Justice Siddiqi said usually courts were held responsible for acquittal of culprits whereas the courts had no other option in absence of incriminating evidence against the accused. He said the methodology employed by the investigators was outdated and obsolete and it was the high time police was given proper training in digital forensic science and technology. He congratulated the organizers of the training course and expressed hope that they would continue their efforts for introducing digital forensic in police investigation.
Earlier, Prof. Arafeen told the participants that Digital Forensics was the process of preservation, identification, extraction, and documentation of digital evidence which could be used by investigators as well as by courts of law. “It is a science of finding evidence from digital media like a computer, mobile phone, server, network and database and it provides the best techniques and tools to solve complicated cases”, he added. He said Digital Forensic was a set of scientifically proven techniques to collect, merge, identify, examine, correlate, analyze and document digital evidence from multiple sources of digital processing and active processing in order to discover facts related to the activities aimed at interrupting, corrupting or compromising system components. He also shed light on the modus operandi on how and from where to start investigations on organized crime cases.
Registrar Sajjada Muhammad Shamim dilated upon the importance of technology increment by the criminals and said all sort of techniques are used to commit more sophisticated crimes. He highlighted the importance of such training for the law enforcement officers and those in the legal system.
Chairman Department of Criminology Dr Jawed Aziz Masudi said criminology was scientific study of crime, criminal people and criminal behavior and in today’s world this study could not succeed without employing modern digital forensic science and related technology. He appealed to CM Sind to set up a modern digital forensic lab in the city for proper investigation of crimes taking place in the mega city.
