A footprint may hold vital clues about the body size of a person and may be crucial in relating evidences recovered from the crime scenes, aiding investigating agencies in tracing the accused, show a research conducted by a professor and his student of the Anthropology department at Panjab University.
The research has been conducted by Associate Professor Dr Kewal Krishan and his student Dr Richa Mukhra, who was recently awarded a PhD on the basis of this research.
The research establishes that footprints and the related evidence recovered from a scene of crime may help the investigating agencies and the police in nabbing the perpetrators. The research, the university said, has been accepted by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and Krishan will present the findings in the 73rd Annual Scientific Conference of the Academy to be held through virtual mode from February 15 to 19.
In this research, Krishan and Mukhra have established a relationship between the body mass index (BMI) and footprints of a person. “BMI is one of the measures of the body size of a person. The findings suggest that BMI of an individual is directly related to the making of a footprint on the floor. It means, larger the body mass of an individual, larger is the area covered by his footprints,” said Krishan.
He added that the study was conducted taking three categories of BMI- Normal range individuals, Pre-obese and Obese individuals. The results of the study indicate that in most of the cases, the individuals with normal range BMI create ‘normal footprints’, however, obese individuals with high BMI category create ‘flat footprints’.
“Therefore, the study may be helpful in pinpointing the identification of the criminals from the footprints recovered from the crime scenes. To some extent, the body size of the perpetrators who created the footprints may be known and this may further lead to their proper identification,” the research concluded. ens