Uxoricide in Nepal: A retrospective case series based on publicly available police and media reports (2004-2026)

Uxoricide, the killing of a wife or female intimate partner by her husband or male partner, is an extreme form of intimate partner violence and a significant yet under-researched public health concern in Nepal. This retrospective case series compiled uxoricide cases from Nepal using publicly available Nepal police website postings and online media reports, identifying 171 documented cases up to 10 March 2026. Case counts were highest in urban and Terai districts, though these raw counts have not been adjusted for population size and should not be interpreted as evidence of elevated risk in these areas. Most incidents occurred in residential settings, with sharp force injury (47.6%) and blunt force trauma (35.4%) the leading methods. Perpetrators were, on average, older than victims (mean difference 5.7 years); this comparison describes the age pattern within the sample and, without a non-homicide comparison group, does not by itself indicate that age-discordant marriages carry elevated homicide risk. Motive was undocumented in 40.9% of cases; among cases with known motive, domestic dispute was most common, followed by infidelity and marital discord. Because the study relies entirely on secondary, publicly reported sources with no autopsy, toxicology, or investigative-file data, findings should be interpreted as a description of documented, reported cases rather than a representative or forensic account of all uxoricides in Nepal. The number of documented cases rose markedly from 2022, though this may reflect improved digital reporting rather than a true increase in incidence. These findings underscore the need for a standardized national death-investigation registry with population denominators to enable robust incidence and risk estimation in future research.