FORGERY OF CHEQUES

I had a tremendous response for my article about car headlights, published in the April, 1995 issue of Crime & Detective. One Marianus Bilung writes from Haflong, N.C.Hills, Assam," Your forensic investigation articles regarding solving of various murder cases are superb. I liked the article on car headlights. However your article presumes that in every accident, car headlights must be broken. If in an accident, the car headlights remain intact, how could you say that at the time of the accident, the headlights were on or not?"

An interesting question indeed. In a severe accident generally the headlights are broken. However I do not know how to solve this question if the headlights remain intact. The principle behind solving such questions, is that a hot tungsten wire (used as a filament in car headlights must undergo some chemical changes if it is hot and exposed to air. It will get exposed to air when the headlights crash. If they do not crash, the filament will not come in contact with air, and it should really be very difficult to say whether the headlights were on or not. Perhaps some reader can give a good answer to this. I feel that an examination of the switches inside the car might be of some help. If the switches were off, one could say that the headlights were off. However I will be very interested to have more solutions from readers. Thanks.

Many youngsters are so influenced by these articles that they want to take up a course in forensic sciences. I have received requests from several youngsters wanting to know the name of the universities where they can study this course. Athreya Arvind writes from 4th Block Jayanagar, Bangalore,"I am a student of arts. To take up a course in forensic science, is it necessary to be a science student?" DineshChandra Haobijam writes from Nongthymmai, Shillong,"I am much influenced by your articles on crime and detection. How can I take up a course in forensic science? Being a student from the North-East, I have nowhere to collect information from. Please guide me." Quite surprisingly, I am getting letters even from young girls who want to take up a career in forensic science. Young Aditi from Tilak Nagar, Jaipur wants to know the same thing which our other two friends want.

Well, first of all let me thank all of you youngsters who are showing so much interest in my articles. I am sure one day you could all become good forensic scientists. I am sorry Athreya, but I am afraid if you have to take up a course in forensic sciences, you must be a science student. Many universities in India offer M.Sc. courses in Forensic Sciences. The ones I am aware of are (i) Punjabi University, Patiala (ii) Sagar University, Madhya Pradesh and (iii) Tamil Nadu University. If someone is aware of other universities offering courses in forensic sciences, please let me know for the benefit of all.

To be eligible for these courses, you should have a bachelor's degree (B.Sc.), preferably with a first division in physics, chemistry, zoology or botany. You must write to the academic registrar of these universities to find out the details regarding the admission requirements. Once you have done the M.Sc. successfully, you can even go for a Ph.D. in Forensic Sciences. In your M.Sc. course you can choose a field of specialization such as forensic ballistics ( the science of guns, arms and ammunition), Forensic entomology (the science dealing with how insects can help in crime detection), or forensic botany (the science dealing with the application of botanical knowledge for the detection of crime) etc. Once you have done this course, the job opportunities are very good. The work is glamorous and satisfying and the salary is handsome.

Alternatively you may become a forensic pathologist. This is what I am working as. These people apply medical knowledge for the detection of crime. The range of work of these people is very wide. I personally feel that it is the most glamorous branch of forensic science. Perhaps this is because I am myself working in this field. These people perform post-mortem examinations and solve crime. The nature of their work is such that they deal with the detection of murders very closely. We also have to attend courts of law very frequently as medical witnesses. You must have seen in movies and serials quite frequently that a doctor is called to opine as to how a particular person was killed, who killed him, when was he killed, and so on. These are the forensic pathologists.

To become a forensic pathologist, you will have to get admission in M.B.B.S. first. After passing this examination you must take up an M.D. degree in Forensic Medicine. Most medical colleges in India offer this course. But the most glamorous are the ones offered by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Maulana Azad Medical College. Those students who can afford, can go to foreign universities to take up a course in forensic medicine. British Universities offer a one year course in forensic medicine. It is called "Diploma in Medical Jurisprudence" (D.M.J.). One must preferably go to Scotland to take up this course. Traditionally Scotland has been known as the "Home of Forensic Medicine". I was lucky enough to be attached to this university for more than a year. Those desirous of a more detailed knowledge must get in touch with:-

Prof Anthony Busuttil

Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine,

Forensic Medicine Unit,

Department of Pathology,

University Medical School,

Teviot Place,

Edinburgh EH8 9AG

SCOTLAND, UK

I hope this satisfies the curiosity of most youngsters. If there are any further questions, I shall be most happy to answer them.

This time I am going to tell you about a very interesting case which I solved last year. A cheque was brought to me, which was supposed to have been forged. I was to tell the police whether the cheque had really been forged or not. Well, the whole story was like this. A 37 year old man Ramesh Chand had got some house repairing work done from a contractor Mange Lal. At the end of the work, the payment due to Mange Lal was Rs. 5,000. Ramesh Chand made out a cheque of the Vaish Co-Operative New Bank Ltd, DaryaGanj, for Rs. 5,000 to Mange Lal. However when Mange Lal got this check, he played a little trick. He added a zero in front of the figure 5,000. Thus the check became for Rs. 50,000. However in all cheques there is a place where the amount has to be written in words too. This provision is made only to ensure that such frauds do not occur frequently. For instance making 50,000 from 5,000 is quite easy. One has to just add a zero in front of 5,000. But to change the words "five thousand" to "fifty thousand" is somewhat more difficult. However Mange Lal seemed quite expert in these matters. He deleted the letters "ve" from the word "five", and instead added the letters "fty". Thus the letter "five" became "fifty". Then he went to the bank and encashed the cheque. The cashier took extra care to examine the authenticity of the check, since the check was for a very big amount. He counterchecked the signatures of Ramesh Chand kept in the bank's records. Since Mange Lal had not interfered with the signatures at all, the signatures tallied. Finding the cheque okay, the cashier consulted the Bank Manager and then encashed the cheque.

About a week later when Ramesh Chand went to get his pass book completed, he came to know that he had been duped by Mange Lal. He immediately complained to the Bank Manager about it. The police was called and Mange Lal was apprehended in no time. Quite surprisingly did not seem perturbed. He quite coolly maintained that he had committed no fraud. He indeed had to recover a sum of 50,000 from Ramesh Chand. He (Ramesh Chand) had made out the cheque himself, because he had genuinely to pay Mange Lal that amount. Seeing the confidence of Mange Lal, I was quite sure that only two possibilities existed now. Either Ramesh Chand indeed owed that much money to Mange Lal. Or else, Mange Lal was so confident of his forgery that he was sure nobody could pin him down. Ramesh Chand denied this statement of Mange Lal quite vehemently. He asserted that Mange Lal was duping everyone by speaking a blatant lie. The Bank manager was requested to take out the check from his record room, so that it could be examined. This was the only way to check who was speaking the truth. When the check was brought for the examination of all, it indeed showed the amount Rs.50,000 written over it both in figures and words. Tried hard as one could, no one could find any sign of addition or alteration in it. If at all Mange Lal had forged the cheque, he had done it very deftly. Finally the case was brought to me for opinion.

So much for the case. When I examined the cheque, I found that it was indeed impossible to find any additions or alterations by naked eye examination. So indeed it appeared that Mange Lal was speaking the truth. But such cases can not and should not be dismissed so lightly. A detailed scientific examination is required before a final word could be said about such matters.

Therefore a word may be said here about erasures before we proceed further. Documents are often made fraudulent by the erasure of important information on a document and the subsequent addition of new data or information. The documents which are frequently changed in this manner (for some or the other gain) are share deeds, inheritance wills, contracts, university degrees, letters offering jobs, passports, birth and marriage certificates, ration cards and of course cheques. It is not infrequent for a terrorist to steal a valid passport, erase the important personal information on it, add one's own particulars in it, and then use that forged passport to run away to other countries. Similarly wills may be changed to dupe someone of his rightful share.

Erasures can be made in one of three ways. One way is the so-called chemical erasure. In this type of erasure, some chemical such as oxalic acid is used to remove the writing from the document. In fact, one can easily get "ink-removers" from the market, which contain some kind of chemical or bleaching agent to remove the stains. The second way is abrasive erasure. Erasure by common household rubber comes under this class. You must have noticed that ink stains can not be removed by rubber. Thus commonly ink stains are removed by chemical erasure. But even ink stains may be removed by abrasive method. For this one must buy a special rubber, which has sand grains in it. This rubber is commonly kept by the typists to remove typewritten matter. The sand grains rub the paper fibers very harshly and remove them from the paper, the ink stains coming out along with them. Even if you do not have this kind of rubber with you, you could still remove an ink stain by taking a blade, scalpel or a sharp knife and scratching the paper with the sharp tip. This is also a form of abrasive erasure. Abrasion types of erasures are the easiest to detect because abrasive method disturbs the fibers of the paper. As you must be knowing, paper is made from wood pulp, and is thus composed of fibers. These fibers may not be visible on naked eye examination, but they are very clearly seen on microscopic examination. If some written matter has been erased from the surface of the paper by abrasive means, the delicate arrangement of the fibers will be disturbed. This disturbed arrangement could very easily be seen through the microscope. In addition, the coating of the paper will also be disturbed.

The third type of erasure are the lift off ribbon erasures. These are special kinds of erasures. This method is applied in modern electronic typewriters. This type can remove any type of written material from the paper. Basically it consists of applying a strip of adhesive tape over the written line, and then jerking the strip off the surface of the paper. The fibers of the paper along with anything written over them will adhere to the adhesive tape, and come off along with it. This method can be easily demonstrated at home. Take any written material, which you can not remove by any means. An old book or magazine will be ideal. It is almost impossible to erase the printed word by either chemical or abrasive means. Now take the normal adhesive tape, stick a small strip over a written line and then take it off the surface of the paper with a little jerk. You will find that the written line will be erased instantaneously. This type of erasures can usually be detected with the aid of oblique lighting to see the indentations.

The most difficult erasure to detect is the carefully conducted chemical erasure of writing ink. Mange Lal was aware of this (He was perhaps reading too much of scientific crime literature!). So he had used some kind of bleaching agent to erase the writing.

However every crime does leave its trace and can be detected by one or the other means. Even this technique disturbs the coating of the surface of the paper and an examination under a special kind of light will usually reveal stains of the removed ink. This light is known as the Ultraviolet light or simply as UV light. This light comes from the sun also but in very minute quantities. It can however be produced in the lab. If the document is examined under the UV light, it will reveal the erased writing ( Please reproduce fig 14.7 on page 699 here).

You might be wondering as to how this is possible. Actually most inks shine brightly when exposed to UV light. This property is known as fluorescence. In other words we can say that inks fluoresce in UV light. Even when the ink is erased from the document (cheques, certificates etc.), the area where the ink was present retains the fluorescent properties of the ink. If such a document is exposed to UV light, we can see the erased writing, as shown in the diagram.

When I examined the disputed cheque under UV light, I found to my surprize that the letters "ve" were shining in front of the letters "fi". Above the shining letters "ve" were written the words, "fty". This clearly showed that the letters "ve" had been deleted by Mange Ram, and the letters "fty" added afterwards.

When Mange Ram was shown a photograph of this cheque taken under UV light, ( which clearly showed the letters "five thousand"), he collapsed and admitted his guilt. He said that he had wanted to make a quick buck, and that is why he had played this trick. The court admitted my scientific evidence, and Mange Ram was given a sentence of 2 years of rigorous imprisonment.