Volume 3 • Issue 10 • 1000174 J Forensic Res ISSN: 2157-7145 JFR, an open access journal Open Access Research Article Forensic Research Chaurasia et al., J Forensic Res 2012, 3:10 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7145.1000174 An Epidemiological Study of Violent Asphyxial Death in Varanasi Region (India) a Killing Tool Neha Chaurasia 1 *, SK Pandey 1 and Amarnath Mishra 2 1 Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS, BHU, Varanasi, India 2 Department of Forensic Science, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology & Sciences(Deemed to be University), Allahabad- 211 007, UP, India *Corresponding author: Neha Chaurasia, Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS, BHU, Varanasi, India, Tel: +91 9415891033; E-mail: nehaforensicgkp@gmail.com Received October 02, 2012; Accepted October 27, 2012; Published October 29, 2012 Citation: Chaurasia N, Pandey SK, Mishra A (2012) An Epidemiological Study of Violent Asphyxial Death in Varanasi Region (India) a Killing Tool. J Forensic Res 3:174. doi:10.4172/2157-7145.1000174 Copyright: © 2012 Chaurasia N, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 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 signifcance. 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 signifcance. 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 Keyword: Domestic violence; Violent death; Strangulation; Hanging; Drowning; Sufocation Introduction In today’s world, crime and violence has a great proportion of human lives. In spite of advancing civilization, killing self or someone is so easy in these days. With the gradual improvement of our society, although we are able to control death rate by using advanced technology but we can overlook that there is certainly increase in unnatural deaths may be due to accidents, suicides and even homicidal deaths are reported day by day. Hanging is being commonly seen in suicides and strangulation as one of methods in homicides. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, suicide is among the top ten causes of death in India. Suicide is also among the top three causes of deaths in India between 16 and 35 years age group. In the history, we too fnd that based on the legend of Kali, the Goddesses followers were not allowed to spill blood when they killed. To get around this technicality, they strangled their targets [1]. More than 96% of drowning deaths occur in developing countries, child drowning is estimated to exceed 300,000 deaths every year [2]. In Canada, hanging is the most common method of suicide [3] and in the U. S., hanging is the second most common method, afer frearms [4]. In the United Kingdom, where frearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second most common place among women (afer poison) Hanging is the most common mode of suicide in Asian region. Homicidal hanging is rare. Accidental episodes of hanging may occur in communities without any defned incidence [5]. According to WHO report, in 2000 the 86000 people were died due to drowning in India, afer China. India is the country having highest incidence of drowning in developing countries (WHO report) [6]. In this study an attempt has been made there undertaken in the view to gain, further knowledge and insight in to epidemiological trend and pathological aspects of asphyxia deaths in Varanasi area to add in the existing volume of knowledge in the subject with the view to help the process of scientifc crime investigation and administration of criminal justice. Material and Methods A cross-sectional retrospective study of violent asphyxia deaths was done by collection of secondary data from medico legal autopsies conducted in the Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS-BHU, and Varanasi from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2011. • Te following parameters were studied; • Manner of violent asphyxial death • Most prominent method of violent asphyxial death • Sex wise distribution • Age wise distribution • Religion of victim Result Out of total 7803 autopsies in last 4 years, January 2008 to December 2011 was conducted in the Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS- BHU, Varanasi, out of 7803 cases, 542 cases (6.95%) of violent asphyxia was reported. Incidence of hanging was (52.21%) reported in out of all asphyxial death and 3.6% of total autopsies, second most common manner of violent asphyxia was drowning death (45.02%), strangulation