“This year we have seen murders on trivial issues such as dispute over parking space, or fight over watching television,” Delhi Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal said while making public the annual police report on Wednesday. “Crime-related murders have been merely 14 percent of the total (467).”

Statistics compiled by the police say the year just gone by saw five more murders than was reported in 2006.

A demographic break-up of ‘murderous Delhi’ (see map) gives an interesting insight: 50 per cent of the murders took place in areas beyond the Ring Road. There are also 23 police stations that received no murder reports in the entire year. This includes both upscale localities — like Vasant Vihar — and industrial areas of Maya Puri, Inder Puri and others.

Men, the police report says, are killed more than woman: 75 per cent of the year’s victims were male, and majority of those murdered were in the age bracket of 25 to 50 years. About 40 per cent of the murder victims were below 25 years of age.

In maximum cases, murderer used “sharp-edged objects”. Strangulation, the report says, is also a popular method of killing, especially when the provocation has been sudden. The police claim that use of gun has declined.

Nine out of 10 murderers, the report says, were first-time criminals — and most of them either illiterates or school dropouts. Other than “sudden provocation”, one important murder motive was “passion crimes” — like spurned lovers taking the murderous way to avenge rejection.

But though the Delhi Police patted its own back for a rise in number of murder cases cracked this year, at least 103 cases still remain unsolved. This includes incidents such as the murder of Vishwant Kumar in Mehrauli, and burning of fashion designer Mona Suri in Greater Kailash-II.

“What is worth noting is that the rate of murder has been on decline since 2000 — from 4.16 per cent in 2000, it has come down to 2.79 per cent,” Dadwal said.

But for the top cop and his subordinates what would also be gnawing is the fact that 2007 was the year Delhi heard the tale and saw the face of a serial killer who worked around the sprawling Tihar Jail complex — Chandrakant Jha.

8,039
Motor vehicle thefts (1,729 traced)

9,467
Cases in Crime Against Women cell (2,859 cases registered, 7,191 complaints disposed of)

2,050
Deaths in road accidents (7,388 injured; 118 run over by Bluelines)

39,84,586
Persons prosecuted by traffic police

Rs 98 crore
Collected in penalty