Retrospective study on Patterns of Homicidal Death in Western Odisha

The study is undertaken in the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, VIMsAR, Burla of Odisha state to examine the pattern of homicidal death in Western Odisha considering the data from 2013 to 2017 (152 cases). Data on age and sex, period of survivability and causes death of the deceased; motive behind, weapons used and place of occurrence of homicides; and relation between the assailant and victim have been collected from the reported cases of homicidal death after doing autopsy. The bivariate and descriptive statistics has been used for data analysis. As the dominant motive for homicides is wealth, wine and woman, the study attempts to examine the motive of homicides along this line.

The analysis depict that out of 6140 autopsies done during the study period 152 (2.47%) are found as homicide cases. The distribution of deceased across gender shows that 79.6% are male and 20.4% are female. Maximum of 80.3% of homicides was committed during night time, in 57.9% cases the place of occurrences is at outside from home, 90.4% cases death was occurred instantly, 58.6% cases the victim is either a family member or relative, 52% cases the weapon used is hard and blunt, 51.3% cases the cause of death is due craniocerebral injuries, 50.7% cases the motive behind the homicide is wealth followed by women (22.4%). The month wise distribution of homicide cases depicted that maximum number of occurrences have occurred during the month of March and June (each 13%) followed by February, september and October (each around 11%).