Love affairs have largely become death traps to people in south Indian state Tamil Nadu according to the latest crime rates of the state.
As per the policy note of state Home Department tabled in the assembly recently, incidents of love affairs leading to murders have risen sharply from 123 in 2007 to 217 in 2009.
Apart from murders, reports of harassment, physical and mental torturing and incidents like pouring acid on face on refusal of love proposals were also coming in from different parts of the state.
While the state witnessed a total of 1,600 murders this year alone due to various reasons, family quarrels (453) and petty fights (372) topped the reasons for the murders according to records released by the police department.
Number of murders also went up from 1521 in 2007 to 1644 last year, the policy note said, adding murders caused by money transaction however registered a dip. Four persons were killed in caste-related incidents in 2009.
Besides these, four civilians were killed in police firing and there were eight occasions in 2009 when the police resorted to firing. This included riot control operations against dacoits and other criminals, the report says.
However, both the number of persons killed or injured and instances of police firing were lower compared to 2008, the note said.