Gujarat Records Most Murders Over Water Disputes

According to statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in January 2020, in the year 2018, at least three people were killed every hour and a total of 29,017 murders took place in various parts of the country, which means that every day, 80 people were murdered.

The largest number of murders - 3875 - took place due to personal vendetta. Property disputes led to 3838 murders, personal gains led to 2995 murders, family disputes caused 2712 murders, petty disputes led to 1997 murders and monetary disputes caused 984 murders.

NCRB data also reveals that 92 murders were committed due to disputes over water in 2018 and the most killings - 18 - took place in Gujarat.

If statistics are broken down further, they show that 1658 murders took place due to illicit relationships, 1581 due to love affairs, 913 due to dowry, 189 due to extremism/Naxalism/insurgency, 54 due to political reasons, 36 due to casteism, 29 were ‘honour’ killings and 24 murders were due to communal/religious reasons. 

These figures show that more murders were committed on account of religion, caste, and gender than due to Naxalism and extremism. But these are neither debated nor made election issues.