127 murders in city in 90 days

CRIME CAPITAL An analysis of the crime data shows that most people were killed over enmity, followed by sudden provocation

A vendor in outer Delhi’s Mangolpuri was stabbed to death on Sunday night for refusing to serve golgappas to a group of youths. Earlier in March, a man was beaten to death with batons in Shahbad Dairy after a DJ he had hired was playing loud music on Holi.

The national capital continues to witness such murders over “petty issues”. In the first three months of 2017, Delhi has already seen 16 such killings, a marginal dip compared to 18 in the corresponding period in 2016.

Senior police officers say the law-enforcing agency can do little to prevent such killings because they were triggered by “sudden provocation” and involved no prior planning.

Murders triggered by sexual jealousy or illicit relationships have triggered one in every 10 of the 127 murders witnessed in Delhi in the first 90 days of 2017.

While the police may claim such murders are difficult to prevent, quite a few of these murders were well-planned and executed before the police could unearth the conspiracies. Twenty-nine murders, nearly a fourth of all killings, were because of personal enmities, a break-up of Delhi Police’s statistics show.

The number of murders over enmities stood at 23 in the corresponding period in 2016. Similar increase in the number of murders over issues such as money and family disputes has been recorded. An ex-sailor stabbing his father 30 times and blowing up his flat in east Delhi’s Madhur Vihar early this year is among 26 such murders till March this year, a two-fold increase compared to last year.

The police have failed to solve nearly 30% of all murders this year, consistent with last year’s figures. The police remain clueless about the killers or motives behind these 31 murders this year. They are yet to even identify murder victims in eight other cases.

The police have been patting their backs in preventing murders during robberies or thefts. “As compared to 13 people being murdered during robberies in the first quarter of last year, this year four such killings have happened. This is because of our crackdown on robbers and thieves by implementing integrated patrolling involving combined teams of local police, PCR and traffic police,” says Madhur Verma, Delhi Police spokesperson.

In the first quarter in 2016, 125 persons had been killed in the city. The figure had stopped at 528 by the end of the year. 2016