Patna: On May 28 the Sitamarhi police recovered the body of a person named Birju Patel (34) from the Chunaria embankment. He had several stab wounds on his body.
On May 27, the decapitated body of a girl was found in Alawalpur village under Gauri Chak police station on Patna’s outskirts. The head was missing from the crime scene.
On the same day (May 27), unidentified robbers targeted the Bank of India branch in Araria district and took away Rs 37.50 lakh in cash and jewellery worth Rs 87.50 lakh kept in the cash box and lockers respectively.
On May 20, the body of a local journalist Subhash Kumar from Bihar’s Begusarai district was found in an area falling under the Parihara police station.
These are some of the recent incidents which establish the rising graph of heinous crimes like murder, rape and loot in Bihar.
As per the data released by Bihar police, the department has witnessed a spike in murder cases. The department has registered 679 murder cases in the first three months of this year. In the corresponding period of 2021 the department had registered 640 murder cases between January 1 and March 31.
However, Bihar police officials claimed that FIRs related to loot, dacoity, rape and violation of the SC & ST Acts have declined a bit. Still, they are a significant number.
In the first three months, the Bihar police registered 631 cases of loot which is slightly less compared to the corresponding period of last year when the department had registered 665 cases. Similarly, 60 cases of dacoity were registered this year, the figure for the same period of last year being 72.
The department had registered 317 cases of rape and gang rape from January 1 to March 31 this year which were 40 cases less compared to the corresponding period of last year when the department had registered 357 FIRs.
The number of cases under SC & ST Acts was 1385 in the first three months. During the same period last year, the department had registered 1548 cases.
Bihar Director General of Police SK Singhal, during a meeting on Tuesday with SP and SSP rank officers of all 40 districts and also the railway SPs, directed them to take quick action against the accused in heinous crimes like murder, rape and deaths due to consumption of illicit liquor.
“We have directed the SP and SSP rank officers to ensure the arrest of accused involved in heinous crimes within two days. The police Station House Officers will be held responsible for failing to arrest the accused within a given time period. In these cases, if the SHOs cannot give a satisfactory answer to the senior officials, the department may take action against them,” Singhal said.
The police department has also initiated several measures to check crimes.
As per an official, the department had launched “Operation Prahar” and it has been yielding positive results. Apart from murder cases, the number of rapes, dacoities, cases of loot and violation of the SC & ST Acts has come down.
“In a bid to arrest notorious criminals, we have constituted 20 companies and 47 platoons under “Operation Prahar” and managed to arrest 4369 criminals till April this year. This includes 378 persons in murder cases, 1056 accused in attempt to murder, 282 under SC & ST Act, 190 accused were arrested for attacking police personnel and 2436 accused in other criminal cases,” he said.
An inter-state police meeting was held recently in which top officials of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh participated. The officials discussed sharing leads about criminals who commit crimes in one state and then hide in other states.
Due to the rising crime graph, the Nitish Kumar government is not only the target of the opposition parties but also of ruling alliance partners like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM). The BJP and HAM are targeting Nitish Kumar who holds the home portfolio also. This is one of the reasons that soured relations between the BJP and the JD-U.
BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal had raised the frequent crime incidents in Bihar to target the Nitish Kumar government. Though BJP leaders are avoiding raising this issue these days due to the tense political situation with the JD-U, the speaker of the Bihar Vidhan Sabha Vijay Kumar Sinha on May 24 slammed the Nitish government for its failure to control crime.
Sinha, who is also a BJP leader, said: “The state government is used to transferring SPs, DSPs and other officers from one place to another. Such moves will not address the law and order situation in Bihar. It needs to change the mindset of the people. The honest officers are getting sidelined and corrupt officers are deployed in key areas. I will personally talk to the DGP and chief secretary to avoid giving protection to them,” Sinha said.
–IANS