As the autopsy of P. Ramkumar is awaited four days after his death, forensic experts say that while the procedure should take place as soon as possible, proper storage in a mortuary will ensure that almost no evidence is lost.
All four individuals — all professors of Forensic Medicine, including one who did not want to be identified — interviewed said the preservation of the body hinges on ideal conditions at the mortuary.
“Everything depends on the temperature in which the body is stored. If it is between 4-6 degree Celsius throughout, there will hardly be any changes,” said N.K. Aggarwal, director - professor and Head of the Forensic Medicine Department at the University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
However, Sudhir K. Gupta, professor and Head of Forensic Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said there are always chances of disintegration.
“Any putrefaction — of the bodily fluids or organs — and the autopsy result changes,” he said.
There are no norms about how quickly autopsies are to be performed, but he referred to the practice of performing the procedure on unidentified bodies three days after death as an indicator of putrefaction. “What we want is justice out of a post-mortem examination. A delay means a dilution of justice,” said Dr. Gupta.
He had headed the three-member panel from AIIMS that performed a second autopsy of E. Ilavarasan, suspected victim of honour killing, in July 2013. “That was after 14 days of death, but we resolved the case. We have to work under such conditions. The best hope is to expect for an experienced autopsy surgeon,” said Dr. Gupta.
All the professors concurred that estimations of time of death will get less accurate as the autopsy is delayed. “This can happen in a spot death, when the death happened away from the eyes of a doctor,” said Dr. Aggarwal.
K. Sreekumari, former Head of Forensic Medicine at the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, currently Joint Director at the Directorate of Medical Education, said that time of death estimations during autopsy need not be exact. “At that point, we will be trying to corroborate the investigating officer’s finding on time of death,” she said.
