Study of Unnatural Death Due to Fatal Burn in Female in Varanasi, India

INTRODUCTION Man has invented fire since time immortal. Burn deaths have tremendous medico-legal importance as they may be considered to be the commonest cause of unnatural deaths in India. Aim of the study To highlight problem and to find out how dry thermal burn affect epidemiological factors and its medico legal consequence. Material and methods The present retrospective study has been conducted for the period of 5 consecutive years from 2009 to 2013 based on autopsy of the unnatural death cases resulting from burn in female. During study period total no. of unnatural Death cases was 10195 and death due to female burn injuries was 1488 in number. These cases brought to the Department of Forensic Medicine, IMS, BHU, Varanasi. Result Thermal burn injuries were averaging 18.65 %. Female burn deaths dominated over male in the ratio of 3.521 (77.86 %) and (22.14 %) respectively. Predominant age group found to be 21-30 years (48.72 %) followed by age group 11-20 showing (23.11 %). Most of the deceased were from the married group (81 %) followed by unmarried (17 %). Manner of burn death was unknown in most of the cases i. e. (97 %), may be suicidal or accidental followed by accidental burn deaths (2.50 %). Involvement of rural population is more i. e.93 % than urban population (0.94 %). Religion wise Hindu (97 %) predominated over other religions. Conclusion Female fatal burn significantly affects community and can prevent it.