Indian police turn to gait biometrics in high-profile murder investigation

Police in Pune, India will compare the gait biometrics of a murder suspect to CCTV footage of an individual whose face was obscured by a hoodie.

Chetan Chaudhary, one of two defendants in the case, is accused of pushing the fiancée of the other defendant from a cliff to his death at historic tourist destination Lohagad Fort in June. Security camera footage from the scene appears to show a person tailing the couple prior to the murder.

The person wearing the hood up attracted the attention of police because of the high temperature the day of the incident.

Legal representatives for both suspects have denied the accusations against their clients.

The lawyer for Chaudhary’s co-accused, Vipul Dushing, told the BBC that gait biometrics “can only show if there is any resemblance with the man in the hoodie, but it cannot offer any conclusive proof that they are the same people.”

“While gait analysis is not conclusive evidence on its own, it can significantly strengthen the overall case when supported by other evidence,” Former Delhi Police Special Cell officer LN Rao told NDTV.

Gait biometrics were used as evidence in a murder trial in the EU in 2025, as Cursor Insight Marketing Manager Ákos Molnár explained to Biometric Update in an interview last year.

“A person can hide their face or change their clothes, but it is far more difficult to alter their natural biomechanics, making gait one of the most promising behavioural biometrics in modern forensic science,” Cybersecurity Expert Sunny Nehra said in comments to NDTV.

Pace of gait biometrics picking up

Law enforcement officials around the world are increasingly interested in using gait biometrics to make use of security camera footage when facial recognition is impractical.

A team of researchers based at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, sees the seismic signatures created by walking, which are determined by factors like gait mechanics, cadence, pressure distribution and stride rhythm, as a passive behavioral biometric that can be measured through vibrations in the ground.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published the team’s patent application for “Person Identification and Imposter Detection Using Footfall Generated Seismic Signals.” The filing describes what the team calls “seismic biometrics,” and two of its inventors recently detailed their approach in conversation with Parola Analytics.

The FarSight system developed by a multi-university team in the U.S. combines gait analysis and body-shape modeling for biometric identification at a distance. And even emotional signatures can be captured from gait biometrics, according to a team of Japanese researchers.

Their readiness as evidence in high-stakes criminal investigations is the next test of the technology’s maturity.

Article Topics

behavioral analysis  |  behavioral biometrics  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  gait recognition  |  video surveillance