you are at the scene of crime starting with circumstantial evidence you move on to fingerprinting gene mapping weapon used to determining the psychological sociological and legal implications of the case in hand seems like the work of a police inspector or a detective but now you too can do it if you are a graduate in science or artthe lnjnnational institute of criminology and forensic science lnjn nicfs oneofitskind institute in india set up under the ministry of home affairs government of india as well as on the recommendations of a committee appointed by the university grants commission looks into the applied aspects of education training and research in the fields of criminology and forensic science to commensurate with the growing needs of the country and the criminal justice system in particularthe director of lnjnnicfs senior indian police service officer sharda prasad said due to the measures taken up by the government to modernise the police force at least 40005000 mobile forensic vans will be deputed at the tehsil level all across the country these vans will have at least an investigator and a forensic scientist hence catering to this demand only will be a huge task prasad himself a distinguished police officer was instrumental in pushing the case for modernisation of the police forcethe institute so far has been conducting training for personnel belonging to the police forces medical science forest officers judiciary to name a few but this is the first time the proposal was mooted to extend our specialised services for graduate students prasad remarkedto start with the institute is launching two programmes ma or msc in criminology and msc in forensic science the minimum qualification for both the programmes is graduation for the forensic science course a graduate in science will do while for the criminology course both science and arts graduates subject to some conditions will be preferred both the programmes are of a twoyear duration and will have an intake of 20 students each prasad said if the students response is good we will consider increasing the intake to 50 or even 100 from the next yearbesides 25 per cent of seats are reserved for inservice or sponsored candidates the age limit for general candidates is 35 years students will not be required to take any entrance test either prasad added students selection will be meritbased from next year probably we will have an entrance too the institute has tiedup with the guru gobind singh indraprastha university ggsipu to offer degrees to studentsprasad pointed out being an institution of national importance we have adequate funds to build the infrastructure and faculty that is required for such programmes some other universities too like sagar chennai patiala punjabi and bundelkhand were offering such