Bihar is seeing a sharp surge in violent crimes with nearly a dozen people murdered or attacked over the past two weeks. The attacks — coming mere months before Assembly elections in the state — has also triggered a political war of words and questions about law and order under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Bihar ADG Kundan Krishnan however deemed the murders a ‘seasonal’ issue that was occurring because people “did not have work” ahead of monsoon.
“Recently, a lot of murders have happened in the whole of Bihar. Most murders happen in the months of April, May and June. This continues until the rains come, as most farmers do not have work. After the rains, people in the farming community get busy and the incidents reduce,” explained Bihar ADG (HQ) Kundan Krishnan.
The top official said that the Bihar police had formed a new cell this month to combat the situation. The team will be working to “create a database of all the former shooters, contract killers and keep an eye on them”.
‘Incident can happen due to mutual disputes in any country’
Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh sought to downplay the situation on Thursday — contending that such incidents were not unusual and could take place anywhere. He noted that action was taken immediately against those responsible and dubbed these recent crimes as ‘mutual disputes’.
“How many kidnappings used to happen in the state earlier? If I hit him, they hit me then is this a crime? This is a mutual dispute. Incidents can happen due to mutual disputes in any country in the world. But here action is taken immediately. The people who commit the incidents are arrested,” Lalan Singh said.
The comments came soon after a prisoner (Chandan Mishra) was shot by unidentified attackers while on parole for medical treatment. The victim — a known criminal with several murder cases on his record — had been admitted to Paras Hospital in Patna when he was attacked. Police suspect that the shooting was carried out by a rival gang.