Forensic evidence – a rape and murder case

Abstract

Various nature of crimes like murder, rape, assault, suicide, disputed paternity, fraud, accident, acid burning, hacking, poisoning etc. are reported and punishable under different sections of the Indian Penal Code, POCSO/Anti-Dowry Act and other Laws. Among different crimes, the rape and murder are very heinous. Both are unrelated crimes coming under different major heads prescribing stringent punishment under different sections of IPC. As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, 30,450murder cases and 38,947rape cases were registered in the year 2016.1 Both the crimes were committed by different psychological mechanism and behavioral activities. The study reveals that rape cases are reported due to sexual intimacy and in more than 90% cases victims are known to their assailants either friend, relative or neighbor and the rest 10% are stranger.2 But sexual homicide (rape-murder) is comparatively less and statistical data is also not available in literature.3 In sexual-homicide cases, the behavior of the accused is observed to be different than normal sexual offenders.4 The rape followed with murder is heinous and committed with aggressive behavior under different situations of the offender resulting death of victim. In such case, physical examination of the victim should be done from head-to-toe conducting with genitoranal area to establish the profile of the criminal. The different factors reported to kill the victim in sexual homicide cases are capsulized in Figure 1.3‒7