Profile of Alleged Victims of Sexual Assault Cases in Dept. of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology in a Medical College in North Kolkata-Study of Two Year Cases

Sexual assault on women is an evil trend in any society. Rape is ‘Not an act of sex, but an act of violence with sex as the primary weapon’.¹

This is a descriptive, observational and retrospective study on the cases of alleged victims of sexual assault reporting for medico-legal examination to Dept. of FMT of our institution. The aim of the study was to correlate the profile of alleged victims with findings of medico-legal examinations of the same. The study was conducted on a total of 100 cases, all of them being registered in the police stations under the medico-legal jurisdiction of our institution. Cases examined here vary from alleged cases of abduction, kidnapping, rape, woman trafficking, sex offence on children etc.

This study reflects the recent rise of cases lodged for sexual assault after expansion in the definition of rape as per the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013.² This study shows that a large number of cases were filed under statutory rape and the cases lodged after consensual physical relation ended, followed by false promise of marriage or simply breach of trust.