4. Predominant Weapon in All Medico-Legal Deaths in Lahore
Sadaf Nadar1, Hidayat-ur-Rehman2, Farhat Sultana3, Pervaiz A Rana1, Javed Iqbal Khokhar1 and Salman Pervaiz Rana1
ABSTRACT
Objective: The main objective of Medico-legal autopsy is to find out the cause of death but it also helps in finding the manner of death. From this we also find out the criminal behavior of the society and usage of different kinds of weapons related with the cause of death and particularly the types of fire-arm weapons which is more in concern with the present study. This study was especially conducted to find out the predominance of rifled fire-arms weapons amongst all fire-arm deaths.
Study Design: Observational / descriptive study.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the Department of Forensic medicine & Toxicology K.E.M.U. Lahore during the period of 2006-2008.
Materials and Methods: This study includes 2979 medico-legal autopsies. The information was gathered from post-mortem reports, police documents and hospital records. Not only the kind of wea on was studied but all other parameters were taken into consideration like, cause & manner of death, sex, age, season and areas of injuries on the body.
Results: The analysis quite distinctly highlighted that amongst 2979 deaths 1285 were because of fire-arms weapons (43.13%). Out of these 1192 (92%) deaths were by rifled weap ns, whereas 103 (8%) were by smooth bored fire-arm weapons. Total number of male deaths by fire -arms was1066 (82.95%), whereas females were 219 (17.05%).All homicidal cases were 788, 46 suicidal, 97 accidental and in 354 the manner remained un-determined. The manner amongst males was, 652 homicidal, 42 sui idal, 82 a idental and in 290 it was un-determined. And in females 136 were homicidal, 4 were suicidal, 15 acc dental and n 64 the manner remained un-determined.The ratio of homicidal to suicidal was 17.1:1 and homicidal to a dental ratio was 8.1:1. In 92% cases the rifled fore-arms weapons was used and in 8% it was smooth bored. The r fled f re-arms injuries had multiple entry wounds in 52.9% of deaths and there was single entry wound in 47% deaths. Wh le there was single entry wound in 66% deaths in smooth bored weapons and in 34% of cases multiple w u ds were observed. The range of fire in (56.8%) homicidal deaths was distant, whereas in 30.4% it was cl se ra ge. Close contact fire was seen in 1.4% of suicidal deaths.
16% cases showed blackening, 10.58% cases had tatt ing and in 2.25% cases there was burning.
Conclusion: The fire-arms weapon is he m st p ed minant mean of un-natural deaths. Amongst them the usage of rifled weapons is more than the smoo h bo ed. So this needs formulation of effective law for control of these weapons.
Key Words: Kind of Weapon, Rifl d, Smooth Bored, Manner of Death, Homicide, Suicide
Citation of article: Nadar S, R hman H, Sultana F, Rana PA, Khokhar JI, Rana SP. Predominance of Rifled Weapons in All Fire-Arms Deaths in Medico-Legal Autopsies in Lahore. Med Forum 2016;27(6):14-18.