How Maharashtra's AI-powered MARVEL helped Nagpur police solve a hit-and-run case in 36 hours

Hours of toll-booth CCTV, once a laborious manual job, were fed into Maharashtra’s new AI system. In less than a day, the software pointed police to one truck and the man behind it.

The fact that Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered technology is increasingly becoming important in today's world is a well-known fact.

In Nagpur, AI even helped crack a hit-and-run case.

It may be recalled that on August 9, a speeding truck killed a woman in Nagpur. The incident happened when she was travelling with her husband on his motorcycle and they got hit by a truck. The woman fell to the road and was run over. A disturbing video of her husband tying the body to his motorcycle to transport it back to their village went viral on social media.

"The vehicle had red markings," that was only description the husband could give to the police. With nothing else to work with, the investigators turned to AI as their last resort which eventually led them into making an arrest in 36 hours.

Maharashtra Research and Vigilance for Enhanced Law Enforcement (MARVEL) is Maharashtra's state owned AI platform. Nagpur Rural Superintendent of Police Harsh Poddar said the lack of a reliable source forced them into turning towards the AI system. Officers compiled footage from three toll booths located 15–20 km apart and fed it into MARVEL’s visual algorithms.

One algorithm shifted through the data to flag trucks with red markings; another compared vehicle speeds to isolate potential suspects. From thousands of frames, one vehicle emerged as the match. A police team traced it 700 km away on the Gwalior-Kanpur highway, arrested the driver, and seized the truck.

Poddar explained that without AI, the same task could have taken weeks. “We had 12 hours of CCTV footage, which earlier would require at least a day to manually check. With AI, it was processed in about 15 minutes,” he said.

Maharashtra is the first state to establish an AI system wholly under government control. MARVEL, Poddar noted, is being expanded with 13 departments to develop solutions ranging from financial crime detection to organised crime tracking. The initiative has drawn interest from other states looking to replicate the model.

According to police, AI is not replacing traditional investigation but accelerating it. “The technology reduces human error and gives investigators leads they can act on quickly,” Poddar said. For the Nagpur case, it turned a single vague clue into a complete breakthrough.