Why is a criminal’s face hidden, either half or masked, in newspapers or news over digital platforms? This point has crossed many a mind but do we actually dwell on the purpose behind it.

What we feel is that a criminal must be made known to the entire public so that if at all they come across this person (once he is released or if he is out on bail), one can be careful and make others alert as well. If the face is hidden from the public, people won’t even get to know who the person is and he might turn out to be someone they know.

But what we never understood was that it wasn’t the “criminal” we were looking at. A layman would term anyone who has been arrested as criminal, but that person unless caught red-handed or unless the crime is proved is actually a suspect. Basically, a suspect’s face is hidden till the crime is proved.  

Any person who is arrested by police is kept under wraps initially as far as possible, so that he can be identified by the witnesses and not be exposed to public before the identification process and till the crime is proven. There are all the probabilities that once the face is exposed without identification, the complainant may be influenced during the identification parade. As per a police officer, the complainant is asked to identify the culprit in a group. Revealing the identity of the culprit is very likely to hamper the judgment of the complainant.

It does irk the common masses when they see the face of a criminal hidden, but then it rounds up to just the basic fact that we as common masses do not differentiate between Convicted and the Accused.