Demographic Profile of Unknown Dead Bodies in South Bangalore

Bangalore City, the Silicon Valley of India has seen tremendous growth in the past few years. Every year thousands of people migrate to the city in search of livelihood. Most of these migrants are homeless and hence the greatest problem faced during their death is the absence of identifying documents. This poses a difficult task to the police in identification of the dead. Most are labeled as unknown dead bodies and subjected for medico legal autopsy. The increasing quantum of unknown dead bodies in our morgue became the prime basis to undertake this research. We undertook a 3-year (2014–2016) retrospective study of unknown dead bodies brought for medico legal autopsy at our centre. A total of 1911 cases were subjected for medico legal autopsy of which unknown cases accounted for 125 cases (6.5%). There was a clear predominance of males 104 cases (83.2%) over females 21 cases (16.8%), with the age group above 60 years accounting to 54 cases (43.2%).followed by 41–50 years 25 cases (20%). There was an increase in the number of deaths during months of extreme temperature-in December 22cases (17.6%) followed by January 15 cases (12%). The average time interval between the recovery of a body by the police to conduct of post-mortem examination was about 10–13 days (33.6%). The most common cause of death in majority of cases was a natural cause.