Spectrograph shows breaks in Bhushan CD – ToI – 23.4.11

Arun Ram | TNN

Chennai: If the Truth Labs report on the ‘Shanti Bhushan-Mulayam Singh CD’ is anything to go by, the controversial tapes expose the temerity of the forger. The private forensic lab approached by Prashant Bhushan to test the authenticity of the CD found that an old tape, submitted by Bhushan himself to the Supreme Court in 2006 on behalf of his then client Amar Singh, was used to weave the controversial “conversation’’.
    The report, accessed by TOI, also provides spectrographic evidence to show the recording was spliced at several places. It includes electronic signatures and voice spectrograms that suggest gaps and editing between several words in the purported conversation Bhushan had with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh. ‘Amar & Mulayam voices copied to CD’
Chennai: The controversial ‘Shanti Bhushan-Mulayam Singh CD’ shows that 17 bits of conversations between Amar Singh and Mulayam in the specimen CD were identical to the voices, spectrographically and some sequentially, in the CD under verification. One of the sentences that repeat in the two tapes, attributed to Mulayam Singh, is too lengthy and hence suspect. It says: “Ab unko kaun samjhaye. Chahe grahamantri ho ya chahe koi ho aisa aira-gaira, inko kya samjhaya jaaye.’’
    “When these voices were converted into voice spectrograms, their electronic signatures indicated the common origin. It is humanly impossible to modulate so many sentences the same way twice. Thus, it is concluded beyond doubt that the voices of Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh recorded in the specimen CD were electronically copied and placed in the CD in question, meaning they were spliced,’’ said Gandhi PC Kaza, former director of AP Forensic Science Laboratories and founder-member of Truth Labs, the first independent forensic science laboratory in the country.
    The report said that detailed waveform analysis of the recordings found discontinuities between words such as ‘denge’ and ‘bahut’; ‘zyada’ and ‘paise’; ‘humne’ and ‘sab’; ‘hai’ and ‘char crore’; and ‘nahi’ and ‘haan,’ as observed by way of electronic gaps and edit signatures. Another giveaway, said Gandhi, was the ringtone of the telephone over which the conversation is alleged to have happened. “The initial telephone ringtone in the questioned and specimen CDs were having the common electronic signatures as per the voice spectrograms obtained, showing common origin,’’ he said.
    Five experts of Truth Labs in Delhi and Hyderabad worked simultaneously using Forensic Voice Identification software used by laboratories worldwide, such as ‘Multispeech 3700’ and ‘Goldwave 4.5’. The teams were headed by S Singh who set up the first voice identification lab of the CBI in Delhi. They split the tapes into three parts. Five bits of conversations from part one of the CD in question tape were found to be identical to the specimen tape. Two bits from part two and all the 12 bits in part three were also found to be identical.
    Gandhi said it could be a caveat that the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CLSL) had concluded its report with the remark that a conclusive result could be arrived at only after analysing the original CD. “Who is going to get the original CD? This is only to save themselves tomorrow,’’ he said.