Medicolegal Cases for Bone Examination: 11-Year Retrospective Study

The skeleton or bones recovered by the police are sent to the Department of Anatomy for medico-legal examination Inn our institute. Even in mutilated bodies, charred bodies and certain decomposed or non-decomposed bodies where identity and cause of death is disputed, bone or piece of bone is sent for anatomical opinion after preliminary postmortem examination to rule out the doubts. Hence, it is attempted to review all medico-legal cases for bone examination carried out in the Department of Anatomy during the study period of 11 years to determine its characteristic pattern.

In the present study, of the total 256 medico-legal cases for bone examination, 91% were of human origin. Almost 50% of the medico-legal cases were recovered from the forest, barren land or farm; and 11.7% cases were exhumed for bone examination. The bone examination was carried out without any preliminary postmortem examination in 45.7% cases. Almost 60% of the medico-legal cases were usually in the form of skeletal remains, either dry/wet bone or bone pieces. The opinion about age and gender was confirmed after bone examination in 88.7% and 78.8% cases, respectively.