BACKGROUND: Koraput district is one of the largest forest districts of Odisha with a dominant tribal population. This study was done with an objective to assess the cause and manner of death along with the epidemiological profiling of medicolegal casesand was the first attempt to conduct an autopsybased study at this recently established Government medical College of Southern Odisha.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A record based cross sectional study of total number of 1168 medicolegal autopsies was done conducted at SLN Government Medical College, Koraput during the period 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2021.
RESULTS: 72.43% of the cases were males with male to female ratio of 2.62:1 with 87.21% cases belong to rural population. Almost 50 percent of cases belonged to young adult age group (21-40 years). The cause of deaths in majority of the cases were due to road traffic accidents (416;35.62%) followed by poisoning cases (278;23.81%). Natural disease was observed in 114 cases (9.77%). Our study revealed that 53.51% of cases were accidental in manner with 27.22% were due to intentional self-harm. The most preferred method in suicide cases was due to poisoning (206; 64.77%) followed by hanging (64; 20.12%). Unnatural death due to suicidal poisoning was seen more in females (109; 52.9%) as compared to males whereas male preponderance was observed more in hanging (49;76.56%).