mumbai a love affair gone wrong is one of the common murder motives in the state with 396 men and women ranging in age from 18 to 45 years killed from 2017 to 2019the top motive though is suspicion of illicit relationship with statistics from the national crime records bureau showing 723 persons murdered in the state for this reason in the threeyear periodlined up after these two top motives are various disputes property financial family and so on that drove people to kill in the state in these three years if all the murders under the sundry categories of disputes are clubbed together then the total under the common head of disputes reaches 2726on average more than 2100 murder cases are registered every year in the state reasons range from the common ones already mentioned to personal vendetta personal gain dowry naxalism dacoity or robbery witchcraft political reasons and road rage there are also blind murders a police term for a killing where no motive is establishedamong states up tops in murders with 12148 committed from 2017 to 2019 bihar is second with 8875 next is the state at third position with 6411 murders followed by west bengal at 5864 and mp at 5582investigators said the 1830 age group was the most vulnerable with 1555 men and 712 women killed while in the 3045 age group 1387 men and 489 women were killed in the threeyearperiodthe report revealed that every day on average four men and two women were killed in the state a total of 4699 men and 1957 women were killed in the state from 2017 to 2019females in the age group 612 years was the most vulnerable among minors with 189 killed in the three yearsinvestigators said the reason was financial gain or personal enmity in the case of minor killings while murders of middleaged people were driven by social matters or illicit relationshipsan ips officer said most murders of senior citizens happen when they are alone in their flats and there are no eyewitnesses as most of the murders of senior citizens are done by strangers there is hardly any circumstantial evidence thus reliance on forensic and scientific evidence is total and the entire prosecution is based on this the officer saidlawyer and former ips officer y p singh said dowry demands were behind an overwhelming number of murders of women refusal to comply with such demands often leads to severe fights and murder a failed love affair or dispute over an extramarital affair is also a major reason he saidformer ips officer s p s yadav said love in the initial stages is mainly controlled by infatuation if one of the love partners is spurned or jilted during such a phase he or she may commit the crime under heavy emotional stressformer state director general of police pravin dixit said murders in love affairs were usually the outcome of extreme frustration in efforts to have total control on the other person unable