Murders, rape, extortion, road robbery and kidnapping are regular affairs in Bihar and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party often raises the law and order situation in the state to target the Nitish Kumar government.

At a recent rally in Jhanjharpur, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that ‘Jungle Raj’ has returned in Bihar which clearly indicates that law and order in the state will be one of the issues for the saffron party in the Lok Sabha election.

Four to five murders are taking place in Bihar every day on an average.

On September 22, an elderly man was gunned down in Jamui, a wood trader was shot dead in Khagaria, Some unidentified men slit the throat of a woman in Begusarai, a jilted lover shot a girl in the head in Patna’s Masaudhi area and then tried to commit suicide, a 14-year-old boy working as a domestic help was killed in Sitamarhi. These are some of the crimes that happened in one day and such incidents are taking place in Bihar almost daily.

These incidents have put pressure on the Bihar government and police. The state police headed by DGP RS Bhatti is concentrating on arresting the accused to bring down the crime cases.

Jitendra Singh Gangwar, ADGP headquarters in Bihar, claimed the strike rate of the police to arrest the accused is increasing in 2023 compared to 2022 and 2021.

“We have arrested 2 lakh, 31 thousand and 172 accused involved in various crimes from January to August 31 this year. Among them, 8468 accused come in the category of hardcore criminals. In 2021, 1 lakh 97 thousand 582 accused were arrested while the figure has reached 3 lakh 46 thousand 332,” Gangwar said.

“When we talk about the arrests of criminals every month, the average arrests were 16,465 (per month) in 2021, the figure reached 28861 per month in 2022 and this year till August, 28,896 accused were arrested on an average every month. The figures this year is higher than 2022 and 2021,” Gangwar said.

“As far as hardcore criminals are concerned, 756 were arrested in 2021 and the figure was almost similar in 2022 when the police arrested 759 hardcore criminals but the figure jumped almost 160% in 2023 when the police arrested 1253 hardcore criminals per month in all 28 districts of Bihar,” he stated.

“Crime control is our top priority with our district police, Special Task Force (STF) and other special forces. The action has been taking place on the basis of intelligence inputs in and outside of the state,” Gangwar added.

“We have arrested Pramod Singh, an inter-state liquor smuggler from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh, Munger police arrested Chandan Tanti and Kunadar Tanti from Faridabad in Haryana. They were involved in cases of murder and are among the top 10 hardcore criminals of Munger district. The Navgachiya police arrested Jay Yadav from Lahori Gate area in New Delhi this week. He is also a hardcore criminal and is involved in murder cases. Siwan police arrested Vishal Singh, a dreaded criminal,” Gangwar said.

The Katihar police arrested 3 cyber conmen and also seized 90 ATM cards of different banks, 23 thumb impressions, 6 photocopies of Aadhar cards, 109 passbooks and one cheque book from their possession. The Saran police arrested a dreaded Maoist Agnidev Ram from a village that comes under Dariyapur police station in the district. Agnidev Ram was involved in 6 cases. The Bettiah police arrested 4 criminals under the Arms Act and the NDPS Act. They were planning to rob a bank. The Munger police arrested 7 arms smugglers from Jamalpur city and also seized 21 partially made pistols and 21 barrels from their possession.    

Bihar has a porous border with Nepal and hence a large number of foreign nationals were also arrested this year.

Gangwar claimed that 35 foreign nationals were arrested till May this year and the figure reached 47 by August 31. Among them 32 foreigners were arrested for entering the country illegally using bogus documents. Six were arrested on the charge of gold smuggling, 5 foreigners were arrested under NDPS Act and smuggling foreign currency, one foreigner was arrested for smuggling arms and ammunition.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)