1993-2018
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Nhrc : Twenty Five Years-billion Hopes
since the cause of death was mentioned in autopsy report as
pulmonary tuberculosis and as such the disease is treatable, whether
the timely diagnosis or treatment was given to the patient or not and
in reality the patient might be suffering from other chronic lung
disease. Caution should be observed during post-mortem that
caseation necrosis may be seen in many other non-tubercular
conditions or tubercular focus seen in lungs could be a coincidental
inding rather than actual cause of death.
2. In some cases there is a tendency of doctors conducting autopsy in
attributing non-signi icant gross indings to the inal cause of death.
In some cases even after having no signi icant post-mortem indings,
the cause of death is straightway given without having any scienti ic
basis. In such cases it becomes very dif icult for the investigators to
rely upon the post-mortem report. As a caution, it should be put in
habit that all the indings on which inal cause of death is based
should be mentioned as a part of opinion.
3. In some of the cases the poor injury description in the autopsy report
creates a situation of weak corroboration with the antemortem
events/treatment.
4. Non adherence to the guidelines as recommended by the NHRC about
the post-mortem photo or videography also creates suspicion in the
mind of investigators that something was intentionally kept hidden.
This may especially happen in the circumstances where the services
of unskilled forensic photographers are taken or when the camera
especially has missed the indings on which the cause of death is
based or some signi icant indings of injury suggesting
torture/assault are missed.
5. Especially in cases of autopsy conducted by board of doctors, a
caution is advised that before signing the post-mortem report, they
should convince themselves that the report is complete and is based
on scienti ic indings.
6. Government health system should make sure that before putting up
the doctor on the roster of post-mortem duty, they should be
properly given training in autopsy or the custodial death cases
should be referred to a board of doctors.
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