Question
The method shown in the photograph is ?

A. Mental Torture
B. Physcial Torture
C. Homicidal.
D. None of the above.
Show Answer
Correct Answer » C Explanation |
![]() |
Ans:C. Homicidal.
The method shown in the picture above represents burking.
Burking is homicidal.
- Homicide means causing death of a person by another person.
- The term ‘Burking’ is derived from notorious criminal ‘Burke’, who with his accomplice ‘Hare’, killed old people by a combination of smothering and traumatic asphyxia, and sold the bodies to the medical school in Edinburgh.
- They would follow and kill intoxicated individuals by one of them holding a hand over the victim’s nose and mouth, while the other would sit on the victim’s chest until he or she died of asphyxia.
- In smothering, death is due to mechanical occlusion of mouth or nose, for instance by pressing a pillow or any soft material over the mouth and nose, or by manually closing these orifices.
- In traumatic asphyxia, death results from pressure fixation of the chest and/or abdomen.
- Because of pressure on the chest, the victim is unable to breathe and dies of asphyxia.
- (Asphyxia is best described as an interference with respiration due to any cause – mechanical, environmental or toxic.)