There has been increasing attention on mob lynching because of high profile cases of anti-minority violence over the last few years. In July 2018, the Supreme Court of India laid down guidelines in mob violence and lynching cases in response to public interest litigations that had questioned the adequacy of state handling of these cases. The proper implementation of some of these guidelines requires the existence of rigorous data. The National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), which collects official crimes data in India, reportedly has decided to collect data on “mob lynching”. In this paper, the author critiques the adoption of this category, particularly in the context of NCRB's existing methodological limitations. He argues that NCRB should adopt the category of “hate crimes” because it is more pertinent to the contemporary crisis and less vague than other categories. Analyzing some of the transnational data collection models, the author proposes a combination of categories and methodologies that will do justice to the formulation of future policy on the issue.