44. Results from Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature Test (short “BEOS”) are now accepted in Indian Courts of Law. In 2008, a woman was convicted of murder largely because of brain scan results. The woman, Aditi Sharma, was accused of killing her former fiancé, Udit Bharati. They were living in Pune when Ms. Sharma met another man and eloped with him to Delhi. Later Ms. Sharma returned to Pune and, according to prosecutors, asked Mr. Bharati to meet her at a McDonald’s. She was accused of poisoning him with arsenic-laced food. Ms. Sharma, 24, agreed to take BEOS in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. (Suspects may be tested only with their consent, but forensic investigators say many agree because they assume it will spare them an aggressive police interrogation.) After placing 32 electrodes on Ms. Sharma’s head, investigators said, they read aloud their version of events, speaking in the first person (“I bought arsenic”; “I met Udit at McDonald’s”), along with neutral statements like “The sky is blue,” which help the software distinguish memories from normal cognition. For an hour, Ms. Sharma said nothing. But the relevant nooks of her brain where memories are thought to be stored buzzed when the crime was recounted, according to Mr. Joseph, the state investigator. The judge endorsed Mr. Joseph’s assertion that the scans were proof of “experiential knowledge” of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it. (SEE: INDIA’S NOVEL USE OF BRAIN SCANS IN COURTS PUBLISHED BY ANAND GIRIDHARADAS (SEPTEMBER 14,2008) (Paper available on Internet (WEBSITE: nytimes.com). In the said article, the author further stated thus:
