Abstract

Background: Burn has tremendous importance in medico legal point of view as it is one of common cause of unnatural death and a major health problem in India. Setting of fire to self (self-immolation) in public is done to attract the attention of government and media regarding political affairs, personal problem. Sometimes people resort criminal act like murder, rape and for concealing the fact they want to burn the body of crime. Most often circumstance of burn is mysterious, obscurity and even untruthful statement. Materials used: Only those cases of burn which are ante-mortem and are confirmed to be so, after autopsy. Observation: The highest incidence occurred in the age group of 21-30 years (44%). About 70% of thermal burn incidence occurred in the kitchen. Most of the burn injuries are accidental in nature (70.67%). In suicidal and alleged homicidal majority of them are female. Major cases of accident burn are due to burst of kerosene stove (92%). Abdomen was frequently involved followed by extremities. Scalp hair, eye brow and eye lashes are involved in nearly 100% cases of suicidal and alleged homicidal burn but in accidental cases scalp hair is involved in (83.01%) and eye brows, eye lashes in 79.99% cases. Blackening of skin (20%), Heat rupture (0.67%) and pugilistic attitude was found in (3.33%) of cases. Soot in trachea is found in 20% of cases, Glottis edema in 2%, generalized congestion in 94.66% and generalized pallor in 5.34% cases. Conclusion: Awareness should be made to avoid such deaths. The extreme method of suicide can be avoided by proper counseling.

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