An Epidemiological Study of Violent Asphyxial Death in Varanasi Region (India) a Killing Tool

Abstract

Asphyxial death is a common incident in forensic practices, and determination of the manner of death that may be accidental, suicidal, homicidal, or natural is of utmost significance. In such deaths, a detailed and meticulous autopsy plays a major role to solve the case while the scene investigation and collection of samples have their own significance. Domestic violence plays a great role in suicidal and homicidal violent asphyxia deaths. Various epidemiological and demographical parameters of the study are described in the present study. Increasing deaths due to asphyxia are one of the most important causes in violent deaths. During the 4 year period from January 2008 to 31 st December 2011, there were 542 asphyxial deaths autopsied conducted by the Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS-BHU Varanasi, India. Asphyxial deaths comprise 6.95% of all forensic autopsies; 35.79% of the cases are aged between 21-30 years; Males constitute 60.89% of all the cases. The most frequent method of asphyxiation death is hanging (283 cases, 52.21%), followed by drowning (45.02%) and suffocation (0.55%). More violent methods, such as ligature or manual strangulations, constitute 2.21% of all asphyxial deaths, respectively. Although it was varying according to the methods of asphyxiation, suicide was found to be the manner of death in the majority of the cases

Study of Violent Asphyxial Deaths in Chitradurga district of Karnataka

“…In our study, hanging was the commonest type of asphyxial death followed by drowning, which is consistent with the studies by various authors 1,6,7,9,10,11 but in one of the study 7 it was observed that the incidence of drowning being the commonest (59.40%) which could be due to the presence of water reserves in the region of the study. According to WHO report 2000 7 , Both China and India have particularly high drowning mortality rates and together contribute 43% of all drowning deaths worldwide.…”

“…The asphyxial deaths was more in age group of 21-30yrs ( 38.89 %) which can be compared to other studies 3,5,7,10 , followed by the age group 31-40yrs ( 33.33%) which goes in favour of another study. 7 Males predominance was noticed in our study and male to female ratio is 3:1.…”

“…7 Males predominance was noticed in our study and male to female ratio is 3:1. This high incidence may be because males are more exposed to stress, strain and occupational hazards compared to females which is similar to the observations reported in different studies.…”

“…6,7,8,9 and in few studies 1,10 the incidence was lower. This difference in the incidence may be due to geographical variations in the population.…”

“…According to WHO report 2000 7 , Both China and India have particularly high drowning mortality rates and together contribute 43% of all drowning deaths worldwide. Most of the deaths caused due to drowning (nearly 97%) occur in developing countries like India, drowning is a common method of committing suicide especially amongst women, and more particularly in localities nearby the sea, river, dam or canal.…”