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Forgotten Heroes
The Fingerprints That Identified the World, and the Indian Names History Nearly Erased
Qazi Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose helped create the fingerprint classification system that transformed criminal identification worldwide. Yet the system carried the name of their British superior. Haque had to petition the colonial government for recognition, while Bose was critically ill and in financial distress when his ₹5,000 honorarium was still being processed. They built a system to ensure identities could never be lost. History nearly lost theirs.