Study of Lip Prints among the Population of Marathi Community

Lip print: The science under which lip prints study referred as Cheiloscopy. Establishing a person’s identity is a very important process in civil and criminal cases. . Lip prints help in personal identification and criminal investigation is very much important as his evidence would be very much useful in law and justice. Dental identification, fingerprint and DNA comparisons are probably the most common techniques used in this context, allowing fast and secure identification processes. However, since they cannot always be used, sometimes it is necessary to apply different and less known techniques. The pattern of wrinkles on the lips has individual characteristics as fingerprints. Although Lip Print identification may appear in the field literature there is very little science or research to support the theory that Lip Prints are individual, or to support a methodology, for the collection and comparison of Lip Prints, which has become accepted within the forensic community. Lip prints are unique and do not change during the life of a person. The external surface of lip has numerous elevations and depressions that form a characteristic pattern, referred to as lip prints, lip prints can be obtained at the crime scene from clothing, cups, glasses, cigarettes, windows and doors. Where identification is concerned, the mucosal area of the lip holds the most interest. This area, also called Klein’s zone, is covered with wrinkles and grooves that forms a characteristic pattern the lip print. The importance of Cheiloscopy is linked to the fact that lip prints are unique to one person, except in monozygotic twins. Like fingerprints and palatal rugae, lip grooves are permanent and unchangeable. It is possible to identify lip patterns as early as the sixth week of intra uterine life The research paper comprises study of 100 female lip prints and 100males lip prints of Marathi community. Prints are divided into 6 types such as branched, rectangular, long vertical, short vertical and diamond and prints of a person studies by dividing lips into four quadrant (A, B, C, and D). This study shows that lip prints are unique to an individual and behold the potential for recognition of the sex of an individual and shows percentage variation of different types of lip prints in male and female lip prints samples. This technique is helpful in sexual dimorphism on the basis of presence of different types of pattern.