Murder motives: Love gone wrong, illicit affairs, enmity

Aarti Sachdeva, 38, was arrested on September 23 last year for killing her husband with her boyfriend's help while their son was sleeping in another room of their Moti Bagh house.

Aarti Sachdeva, 38, was arrested on September 23 last year for killing her husband with her boyfriend's help while their son was sleeping in another room of their Moti Bagh house. The police said that Aarti opened the door in the wee hours to let her boyfriend in and stabbed Virendra, a snack shop owner, to death.

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According to the statistics provided by the Delhi Police, a majority of murders that took place in Delhi last year were crimes of passion as motive behind one out of five murders was illicit relationships. In 2010, 15 % of the total murders took place due to illicit relationships.

Out of the total 543 murders that took place last year, 97 (18 %) had one thing in common, love gone wrong. "The cause behind these murders is illicit relationships, which could be extra-marital or cheating by partner. In most such cases, they were unplanned and happened in a moment of rage after a heated argument," Delhi police commissioner BK Gupta said.

Last year, 17 % of murder cases were reported due to sudden provocation over trivial issues, making it the second biggest murder reason in the city. 2011 also recorded a high number of road rage cases.

While the total number of murder cases have gone down by three %, passion-led murders and murders due to sudden provocation over trivial issues have seen an increase of three and two % respectively.

Family dispute over property and other issues also claimed 48 lives (nine %). The most recent case was murder of siblings over a property dispute in Ranjit Nagar by their cousin.

An analysis of motives in murder cases reveal that 10 % were due to old enmity.

“This year the detection rate is also high and we managed to solve 82 % of the murders,” Gupta said.