Crime graph up in Bhagalpur

BHAGALPUR: Bhagalpur SP Raveendran Sankaran, who won accolades at Gaya for his firm dealing with the Ranvir Sena and MCC, seems to be in for trouble here as the diara-based criminals have started giving the Bhagalpur police a slip.
If the daylight murders of widow Manju Dutta and LIC officer Sunil Kumar Mishra, the kidnapping-cum-murder of advocate Manohar Yadav in the Nathnagar locality, the murder of businessman Sharma in the Chuniharitola, loot of Rs 17 lakh from a bank in Kahalgaon, the loot of Rs 65,000 from a gas agency and other incidents in the recent past is indication, a spate of murders and loots in this district have left the residents in a perpetual state of fear.
Most of the residents of Adampur, Khanjarpur and Barari allege that the absence of proper policing is the root cause of this dangerous trend. "When we go to the police stations to lodge an FIR, they treat even the complainants as the criminals. Sometimes, we have to go to the SP for help," said a Barari resident, preferring anonymity.
A resident of Adampur, Anand Mishra, said that unemployed youths from the nearby diara villages were behind most of the incidents. "They can be seen moving around throughout the day in the city area. And, the police are clueless about whom to stop and whom not to," he said.
The SP also admits that the crime graph has recently shot up in the silk city. "But it does not mean that we are inactive. We have to face the wrath of the common man when we fail to give a result within hours," he said.
He also said that since he is busy in the constables'' recruitment test here, he finds little time for proper policing in the district.
"But the Bhagalpur police are leaving no stone unturned to nab the dreaded criminals," he claimed.