Crimino-Vision Events

On 8th February 2022, the Department of Criminology of School of Social Work Roshni Nilaya held a webinar on Identification of the dead by analysing the bones, at 2.30 p.m. via Google meet application for the final year Criminology students.

The guest lecturer was Dr.Venkat Krishna Shenoy, Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Yenapoya Medical College, Mangaluru.

He taught the class about determination of sex from skull, age estimation from sutures and teeth of skull, assessment race of skull or individual and age assessment from the X-ray of given bone.

He began by introducing the students to performa, requisition letter and certificate which are the necessary documents to be sent to the Police Officer regarding the opinion of the Forensic experts on the given bone sent by Police Officer to the Forensic expert to get opinion. He informed the necessity of metal seal and red wax seal in Performa.

He emphasised the importance of repacking the given evidence after examination, with the same clothing or material that the evidence was sent in by the Police Officer. As the package sent by Police has their red wax seal and has to be used for repackaging by the Forensic Expert or Examiner to ensure chain of evidence in the court. He clarified the difference between performa and certificate.

Sir advised the students on not commenting on details that are not clear to avoid complications.

In terms of age, he said that age must always be given in a range.

Sir also informed that stature of the individual can be assessed by using a formula and by assessing and measuring length of long bones such as femur, humerus, tibia. If the fore mentioned are unavailable then ulna, radius and fibula also provide good range for stature.

Sir further taught there are a total 206 bones in the complete human skeleton including all small and big bones.

He provided pictures of the skulls of male and female and stated all the traits that enable differentiation between the two sexes. He presented pictures of the different sutures present in the skull for age estimation of the skull.

Sir provided the students with mnemonic for remembering the different teeth and their age of appearance.

Sir described the three classification of cephalic index in human anthropology for assessing the race of individuals from the skull bone.

He taught the three hip bones that constitute the pelvis. He demonstrated various pictures to facilitate deeper understanding of the location and shape of each bone.

He explained that in females the femur is shorter, pelvis is wider. Lastly, he taught how to assess the age of the bone from the X-ray.

He provided an interactive session and was open to clarification of students' doubts and queries.

The session was enlightening, engaging and clear. Sir showed pictures of the various bones and gave practical knowledge on the work that is done by the examiner. He thoroughly taught the details required for a good examination and instilled the importance of proper documentation between the police officers and the examiner for effective investigation and solving of cases.

At the end of the session, final year student, Akshaya D Kini, on behalf of School of Social Work Roshni Nilaya, provided the vote of thanks to Sir for taking up a valuable class for the students. A total of 35 students attended this session.