Story with crime scenes & forensic

It’s quite rare that you get to see a person coming out from a humble background, making it to the top of the success ladder. Dr. Satendra Kumar, one of the most talked-about global forensic expert, is one such name that has scored some immense growth and success in his life, with all the hard work and determination.

Born in a govt official’s family, he saw his grandfather working in the State electricity department while checking and sorting the faults and risks of power lines around his village. Moreover, his father used to work as a commando in the Law enforcement department.

During the initial years of his childhood in 1995, his family shifted from Panchkula (Chandigarh) to a small town in Southern Haryana called Narnaul, which falls under Mohindergarh District. This was mainly due to his father’s routine transfer from GRP to CID. While the family has to cope up with the language barriers, these initial years at a new city were not that easy for the young Satendra and his brother.  Still, they tried their best to settle down in a completely new setting and surroundings.

After around two weeks, when little Satendra came back from school, his father introduced him to a new friend named Mr. Shiva Kumar. Mr. Shiva was a crime scene photographer and hailed from a small village in southern Haryana near the town.

During that meeting, Satender saw Mr. Shiva Kumar handed an envelope to his father before leaving back. Afterward, his father asked him to keep that envelope in the cupboard. This was quite a new and strange experience for a little satender as never before he saw a document wrapped that safely in an envelope.

He was filled with all the curiosity to learn about the secret wrapped within that envelope. So, once his father went out for some work, he opened that envelope and saw something that cannot be deemed appropriate for a kid of his age.  The envelope contained the images of a dead body that was shattered into pieces. Prima facia, that looked like a case of suicide after getting crushed under the train.

These photographs were part of the task assigned to his father on his new job and came out to be Satendra’s first interaction with crime scene photographs. The incident filled the little Satendrawith lots of questions and anxiety, and he decided to get it clarified from his father.

His father, too, got surprised after seeing these types of questions coming from a kid. So, he told him that he is too young for all this and will get to know about it once the right time comes. For months, those images and related incidents kept on rolling in his mind.

On July 2nd, 2018, he packed his bags and kickstarted a never-ending journey as a  3D crime scene scanning expert. He then traveled to Dubai and met his friend Lt. Mohammed AL Kaabi (Head of the Crime scene Unit) Abu Dhabi Police.

 In 2018 alone, he also traveled to 8 new countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Thailand, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, while enjoying every phase of the same journey. He had numerous excellent discussions about forensic and crime scene with police departments across the Middle East and Europe during the process.

In September 2018, he was welcomed with once in a lifetime opportunity. He was going for training with Israel Secret service operatives on live ammunition and antiterrorism planning for the day and night operations at different locations to combat in other field exercises.

This was the time when he realized why the trainers from 5 HR BN, Sikh Light infantry, 18 Punjab Regiment trained him so hard. It must be mentioned that he was also trained in Thal Sainik (Overland Soldier) camps for weapons, map reading, and obstacle training from 2005-2006.

So, this new role came over as a perfect marriage between his investigative and tactical skills.

Travelling for meetings and discussions on forensic technology, while staying in hotels, became a normal routine for him. In 2019, he went on to add  19 more countries to his passport, including Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Oman, Lebanon, Philippines, Malaysia, Maldives, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, South Korea.

He loved this journey and started to enjoy by making friends among Police departments of different countries to keep his forensic knowledge updated. In June 2019, Interpol asked him to associate with their team and conduct workshops on Geolocating People who pose a threat to our world.

Besides, he has also been asked to deliver a few words for a community of 144 nations united together by INTERPOL. The year 2020 started with the good news for him from Canada when he finally became an official trainer for the IMS MAP360 Point cloud. This was right after eight years when Joel trained him for the same. It was now his time to take on the guard, and he fulfilled imparting the skills to a big list of officers around.

As the year 2020 also brought a pandemic situation for the whole world,  Satendra was still adamant about teaching and training numerous public safety enthusiasts around, who wish to learn new technologies, but still trapped in the world of books and theory, without giving any field knowledge.

So, he decided to work towards enabling skilled crime scene experts or the field. He has enjoyed the technology enablement across Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and many other countries. Moreover,  getting technical knowledge of Alfred Njeru from the United Nations Interim Security Force for Agyei in Sudan was something that always fantasized about him.