This article reviews the forensic aspects of Diatoms analysis and acid digestion method for diatoms extraction. A body recovered from the water does not necessarily imply that death was due to drowning. If the person is still alive when entering the water, diatoms will enter the lungs if the person inhales water and drowns. The diatoms are then carried to distant parts of the body such as the brain, kidneys, lungs and bone marrow by circulation. If the person is dead when entering the water, then there is no circulation and the transport of diatom cells to various organs is prevented because of a lack of circulation and diatoms cannot enter the body. When a body is recovered from water, there is usually a suspicion whether it was a case of ante-mortem or post-mortem drowning i.e. whether the body was drowned before or after death. In these medico legal cases, presence of diatoms in the body tissues is very useful evidence. In drowning related death cases, a correlation between the diatoms extracted from bone marrow and liver/lungs) samples and the samples obtained from drowning medium have to be established for the successful determination of drowning site in Forensic laboratories. Diatom analysis should be considered positive when number of diatoms is above a minimal established limit; 20 diatoms/ 100 µl of pellet obtained from 10 gm of lung samples and 50 diatoms from other organs and further matching of diatoms from bone marrow and drowning site can strengthen this supportive evidence and a positive conclusion can be drawn whether person was living or not when drowned. Detection of diatoms in the bone marrow is a proof that the individual was alive when entered the water.

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Genetic variations among humans occur both within and among populations and range from single nucleotide changes to multiple-nucleotide variants. These multiple-nucleotide variants are useful for studying the relationships among individuals or various population groups. The study of human genetic variations can help scientists understand how different population groups are biologically related to one another. Sequence analysis of hypervariable regions of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been successfully used for the genetic characterization of different population groups for forensic purposes. It is well established that different ethnic or population groups differ significantly in their mtDNA distributions. In the last decade, very little research has been conducted on mtDNA variations in the Indian population, although such data would be useful for elucidating the history of human population expansion across the world. Moreover, forensic studies on mtDNA variations in the Indian subcontinent are also scarce, particularly in the northern part of India. In this report, variations in the hypervariable regions of mtDNA were analyzed in the Yadav population of Haryana. Different molecular diversity indices were computed. Further, the obtained haplotypes were classified into different haplogroups and the phylogenetic relationship between different haplogroups was inferred.

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Most often the newspapers and bulletin come out with voluminous cases of deaths due to drowning. At the same time an ample section of such cases encompass entomological evidences, that can be scrutinized as a very useful parameter in estimating post mortem interval (PMI). This research database is an outcome of a 2 years reflective study, based on an assessment of records related to human deaths due to drowning. The drowned bodies from various districts of Haryana are sent to PGIMS (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences), Rohtak. The study took the data of year 2015–2016 into consideration. All the cases were reviewed and summarized in terms of monthly occurrence of total cases, age differentiation, gender differentiation and month wise occurrence of entomological evidences on the dead bodies through detailed study of post mortem findings. This data will lead to an insight into the magnitude of drowning deaths in Haryana along with the usage of entomological data for determining Post Mortem Submersion Intervals (PMSI).