Kerala researcher develops Malayalam forensic linguistics model for criminal investigations

Thiruvananthapuram: ‘Forensic linguistics’, which carefully captures stutters, speech patterns and language style, casts a powerful net before criminals in modern investigations.

Loknath Behera, who led a team from the National Investigation Agency to the United States to question David Coleman Headley, the main accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, recognised the potential of this forensic linguistics system used by the Chicago Police Department during that visit.

More than a decade later, when T S Sruthi, a native of Pattazhi in Kollam district, obtained the first PhD in forensic linguistics in Kerala, the possibility of voice analysis becoming a key tool in future criminal investigations became clearer.

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In 2018, at a workshop organised by the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kerala in collaboration with the police and the training college, Sruthi was a student who listened attentively when Behera, then serving as Director General of Police, spoke about the possibilities of forensic linguistics in criminal investigation.

Sruthi later continued her research at the Karyavattom campus of the University of Kerala, where she developed a forensic linguistics criminal investigation model in Malayalam.

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The research was carried out under the guidance of S Prema, Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the university.