NEW DELHI: The idea of living together once symbolised freedom — a quiet rebellion against rigid social codes. But today, “live-in” is no longer a whisper of modern romance.It has thrown up country’s some of the most chilling incidents of betrayal, violence and death.From Noida to Bengaluru, Delhi to Mumbai, headlines now read like scenes from a psychological thriller.
Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel’s recent warning to women — “stay away from live-in relationships, or you might end up chopped into 50 pieces” — was not a metaphor.Let’s first take a look at some of the cases that have taken place and what they tell us:The grad who knew too muchWhen 21-year-old Amrita Chauhan met Ramkesh Meena during a job interview in Noida, sparks flew instantly.Within months, they were living together in Delhi, recording their affection on camera — racy clips that would later become their undoing.But by September, Amrita’s ex-boyfriend Sumit Kashyap — a gas cylinder distributor — re-entered her life. Their social media romance reignited, while Ramkesh faded into the background. Soon, those private videos became a weapon.Ramkesh allegedly began blackmailing Amrita with the clips, demanding attention she no longer wanted to give.What followed was macabre. Police allege Amrita plotted his murder with Sumit’s help. On October 6, they allegedly tied and gagged Ramkesh before choking him to death. Then, in a calculated cover-up, Amrita — a forensics science graduate — advised Sumit to stage a fire.They poured ghee, oil, and wine on the body, opened a gas cylinder, and ignited it. Flames consumed the room; the crime, they thought, would disappear.But CCTV footage caught them leaving in masks. The fire, initially thought to be an AC blast, revealed a murder planned with chilling precision.Burned alive at a traffic signalIn Bengaluru, Vanajakshi, 26, thought leaving her abusive partner would end her suffering. But her live-in partner Vithal, a cab driver, refused to let go.When he saw her in a car with relatives after a temple visit, he blocked her vehicle at a traffic signal, splashed petrol, and set her ablaze in broad daylight.She died in hospital. He was arrested within 24 hours — his own burns betraying him.Pregnant woman stabbed, husband stabs killerIn Delhi’s Nabi Karim, a crowded market turned into a battlefield of passion and rage.Shalini, 22 and pregnant, was attacked by her former live-in partner Aashu, who couldn’t accept that she had reconciled with her husband Aakash.As Aashu lunged with a knife, Aakash tried to shield her but was stabbed. In a desperate counterattack, he snatched the weapon and stabbed Aashu.By the time police arrived, both Aashu and Shalini were dead — lovers locked in a deadly triangle of jealousy and vengeance.Lovers found hanging in BengaluruIn a quiet Anekal neighbourhood, neighbours broke down the door of a rented room to find Rakesh Kumar and Seema Nayak, both from Odisha, hanging from the ceiling fan.There were no notes — only silence and suspicion.Police say Rakesh, consumed by jealousy and alcohol, might have ended his life first.Seema followed soon after.Friends said they fought daily over accusations of infidelity. Love had turned into a slow death long before the rope tightened.The Mira road horrorThe stench came first. Then the horror.When police broke into Manoj Sane’s flat in Mumbai’s Mira Road in June, they found pressure cookers filled with human flesh.Sane had allegedly murdered his live-in partner Saraswati Vaidya, chopped her body into pieces, and tried to boil the remains.For days, neighbours thought a rat had died. What they smelled was evil, simmering behind a locked door.The Manesar field murderIn Haryana’s Manesar, police found a woman’s body wrapped in a blanket in a wheat field. It was Rita, a factory worker.Her live-in partner, Shiv Shankar Sharma, confessed to strangling her in a fit of jealousy.She had been missing for weeks. By the time her father identified her body, Kalicharan, as he was locally known, was already on the run. He was arrested two months later.Daughter kills father who opposed her affairIn Mumbai’s Andheri, Sonali Bait, 37, and her lover Mahesh Pandey killed her 58-year-old father Shankar Kamble — all because he opposed their relationship.The father had begged her to end the affair and return to her husband and children. Instead, she and Mahesh allegedly punched him in the chest during a heated argument, killing him on the spot.Love blinded her to blood — her own father’s.The Shraddha Walkar case — The ‘beginning’ of a fearWhen Aaftab Poonawala murdered Shraddha Walkar, chopped her body into 35 pieces, stored them in a fridge and dumped them across Delhi, the country gasped.A year later, Delhi Police’s 6,629-page chargesheet confirmed every grisly detail — the fridge, the saw, the lies. Shraddha had once told Mumbai Police Aaftab had threatened to “cut her into pieces.” Few believed her then. Everyone remembers it now.‘When control slips, violence takes over’Psychologists describe such crimes as a dangerous cocktail of emotional detachment, patriarchy and untreated mental illness — a mix that can turn everyday conflicts into acts of fatal violence. Dr. Dipali Batra, senior clinical psychologist at Max Superspeciality Hospital, says, “These are not crimes of passion — they are crimes of possession. The perpetrator sees their partner as property. When the illusion of control breaks, violence replaces love.” She explains that individuals with antisocial personality traits “lack empathy, guilt and any regard for moral values,” often justifying their actions with thoughts like, “I am doing this because this person did this to me.” Dr. Nisha Khanna, who has worked in the field for over two decades, calls it a “power-control wheel.” “Any assertion of female autonomy can provoke explosive rage, especially in those with narcissistic or antisocial traits. The response? Punishment,” she says. Monika Sharma, another senior psychologist, adds that patriarchy fuels this mindset. “When educated, independent women assert their rights, some men feel their authority threatened. Domestic violence becomes a way to reassert control,” she says. Infidelity, jealousy, and humiliation — all become triggers in fragile, unhealed minds that never learned how to cope.Also read: Why Indian couples are killing each otherCulture clash: The debate Governor Anandiben Patel’s blunt warning — “Girls, stay away from live-in relationships, or you’ll be cut into 50 pieces” reignited a national debate that cuts across generations and ideologies.Her words, spoken at a women’s empowerment event in Lucknow, drew both applause and outrage.
“If you don’t marry, how will you have children? What will be their future? If you go against the societal structure, what impact will it have on people?”- Nitin Gadkari
Union minister Nitin Gadkari in December said that live-in relationships were “not part of Indian culture” and warning that such arrangements “often end in tragedy.”‘Live-in partners know what they’re choosing’In May 2025, observing the increasing prevalence of live-in relationships in recent years, the Supreme Court stated that if two able-minded adults reside together as live-in partners for more than a couple of years, a presumption would arise that they voluntarily chose that kind of relationship, fully aware of its consequences.Therefore, the allegation that such a relationship was entered into based on a promise of marriage may be deemed unworthy of acceptance.While quashing criminal proceedings against a man who was accused of rape charges by his live-in partner, a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Manoj Misra said the physical relationship continued for over two years without a complaint in between and a presumption would arise of there being valid consent for initiating and maintaining the physical relationship.“A decade or two earlier, live-in relationships might not have been common. But now more and more women are financially independent and have the capacity to take conscious decisions of charting their life on their own terms. This financial freedom, inter alia, has led to proliferation of such live-in relationships. Therefore, when a matter of this nature comes to a court, it must not adopt a pedantic approach; rather, the court may, based on the length of such relationship and conduct of the parties, presume implied consent of the parties to be in such a relationship regardless of their desire or a wish to convert it into a marital bond,” the court said.In a similar verdict, the Supreme Court in March had held that a woman who was in a live-in relationship for a long period may not be able to accuse her live-in partner of compelling her to get into a physical relation on the false promise of marriage in order to face rape charges, as it could not be said with certainty that the physical relationship was purely because of the promise.The court had said in such cases, even if it was assumed that a false promise of marriage was made to the complainant initially by the accused, the fact that the relationship continued for such a long period would render the plea of the complainant — that her consent for all these years was under a misconception of the fact that the accused would marry her — implausible.The line between love and lawEach case, each verdict, each public remark adds a new layer to a nation still learning to reconcile freedom with fear, autonomy with accountability.What began as a symbol of liberation now stands at crossroads: between those who see it as moral decline and those who see it as the right to live and love freely.
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