Crimes of passion on the rise in city

The brazen murder of an 18-year-old girl at her own home on Friday afternoon seems to be the culmination of how rejection in love can bring out the worst in criminals.

The brazen murder of an 18-year-old girl at her own home on Friday afternoon seems to be the culmination of how rejection in love can bring out the worst in criminals.

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“Case after case simply illustrates how romance-driven jealousy and envy are slowly overtaking other emotions such as self-esteem and dignity to trigger murderous rage,” said a police officer.

On December 31, a 20-year-old woman was stabbed to death and her male friend grievously injured by an enraged driver, whose love the victim had allegedly spurned a month ago. The incident took place near east Delhi’s New Ashok Nagar police station.

Less than a month later, in one of the first such incidents to have been reported in 2013, a 27-year-old Army man set himself and his estranged wife ablaze at his in-laws’ residence near RK Puram on January 28.

Another blood-thirsty end to unsuccessful romance was reported recently from northwest Delhi’s Mongolpuri with a tutor being arrested for murdering a 17-year-old school student.

“In 2012, only 14% of the total 499 cases of murder were related to passion crimes. The rest were due to sudden provocation, old enmity or sex crimes,” the officer said.

Meanwhile, investigators are likening Friday’s case to the infamous Radhika Tanwar murder case in March 2011. The 20-year-old DU student was gunned down on a foot-over bridge by a labourer whose love she had spurned.