‘ Fourth Force’ could help nip crime in the bud

A case of sexual assault of 14- year- old by her teacher, a physical attack incident on passenger by cab driver and a homicide committed by house maid— these aren’t just incidents you hear about in our country every day.

These are also crimes that shout out for an important question “Couldn’t this crime have been prevented with proper background check by the employer?” A new background check agency formed by former police personnel aims to address this concern.

While the police force usually reaches crime scene after occurrence of crime, this team of 135 former police personnel aim to nip the evil in the bud— through Fourth Force. The agency helps verify background of people across key businesses and industries that can help pre- empt and reduce wrong hires, fraud and criminal intent.

Headed by former special director of CBI Saleem Ali, Fourth Force has roped in E. Narayanan and S. K Peshin, former senior superintendents of police at CBI as zonal heads of Fourth Force to bring in their experience and aptitude in crime detection to the organisation.

“The question of lack of genuine background check for teachers, office boys or even spouses has become a matter of concern,” said Dr. Ali.

With their presence across the country, Fourth Force operations pertaining to background verification will be assisted by a web- based application, which will make the response time faster, maximum a week, said Dr. Ali.

Apart from providing background verification services for organisations that are looking to hire new recruits or wish to have a background check on current employees, Fourth Force will also cater to individuals, including those seeking matrimonial alliances and those looking to hire maids, house help and drivers. ‘ A tech- savvy police force’ Trying to break away from the stereotype that old policemen are not techsavvy, Dr. Ali said that he has designed the web- based application, himself and thinks that technology can play a major role in deterring crime.

Apart from the criminal verification of potential recruits, his team of Fourth Force also plans to introduce social profiling as a part of verification, which will be done by tracking the social media profile of recruits.

Scanning and finding team members for Fourth Force was also done using business social network platform LinkedIn, Dr Ali told this newspaper.