Aluminium phosphide is widely used as fumigant and pesticide. Its widespread use is associated with increased incidence of poisoning. Its poisoning occurs directly due to ingestion and indirectly due to inhalation. After coming into contact with gastric acid on ingestion, it produces phosphine, the main active component for poisoning. In medicolegal cases, aluminium phosphide poisoning is diagnosed by the presence of phosphine in the blood and tissue samples using silver nitrate test. An issue has been raised about the postmortem production of phosphine and hence, false positive result for phosphine with the test. In this study, postmortem blood was kept stored at room temperature for varying duration without any preservative. The blood samples were analysed for presence of phosphine using silver nitrate test. Aluminium phosphide poisoning cases gave positive results. No aluminium phosphide negative case showed positive result in this study. It was concluded that silver nitrate test doesn’t give false positive reaction with stored postmortem blood. 

Keywords: Aluminium Phosphide Poisoning; Ammonium Molybdate Test; Silver Nitrate Test; False Positive Test; Hydrogen Sulphide.