Love, sex top murder motives in cities

The country might be shocked by the recent murders of Arushi Talwar in Noida and Neeraj Grover in Mumbai allegedly for reasons connected with love affairs, but such relationships and sexual causes are the leading cause of murders in some of India's most urbanized states. ( Watch )

According to data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau, while love affairs and sexual causes are among the top three motives for all murders and culpable homicides committed in the country in 2006, in states like Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh they are the top cause for murders.

At the all-India level, personal enmity accounted for 10% of all killings, while 8% people lost their life due to property disputes and 7% were killed because of love affairs or sexual causes. The data says 64% of murder cases were related to other motives, not classified, which is not defined.

However, killings for motives that can be traced to love affairs and sexual causes accounts for more than 10% of cases in most states with a high degree of urbanization. In contrast, in states with low urbanization like Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh or Orissa, property disputes or personal enmity are more likely to lead to people getting killed.

Cases related to love affairs were the largest classified motive of murder in Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Apart from these states, the motive in more than 10% of murders (or culpable homicide not amounting to murder) in Tamil Nadu, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Sikkim and Madhya Pradesh is also love or sexual reasons.

On the other hand, barely 4% of all killings in Uttranchal, Rajasthan and Bihar, 2% in Assam and J&K and 1% in West Bengal, Kerala, Meghalaya are related to love affairs. Such killings in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu Pondicherry and Chandigarh accounted for a negligible proportion.

The pattern suggests some connection with urbanization, though not a simple one-to-one correspondence. One explanation for this could be that less urbanised societies provide fewer chances of contact with the members of the opposite sex outside the bounds of family and kinship.