Sitaram Yadav. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 16: Shocked by the murder of retired All India Radio executive Sitaram Yadav, the city police today decided to renew its drive to protect senior citizens by asking them to furnish important information and submit details of domestic helps.

The police had launched a similar drive last year but it had come a cropper.

The police, which conceded they was “confused” about the murder, said they would visit homes and apartments across Patna and distribute forms to residents, asking for full details. The forms, duly filled up, have to be submitted to the respective police stations.

Yadav, 70, was killed early on Tuesday by assailants who battered him to death with a hammer in his Kumhrar residence. They locked up his wife Shakuntala Devi and decamped with jewellery and cash after breaking open an almirah.

Patna deputy inspector-general of police Vineet Vinayak said the initiative had been started last year, but did not take off as most of the forms were not submitted.

Vinayak said the drive would be renewed but this time, it would be backed up by a publicity campaign to make the residents aware of the benefits of such an initiative.

“The drive was started in areas like Agamkuan, Rajendra Nagar, Patliputra among others. The residents of these areas were given an application form which needed to be filled up and then returned to the respective police stations. It was a detailed proforma and people had to fill up the details which included the names of family members, addresses, telephone numbers, name of the servants or maids, their watchmen, their milkman. With all these inputs, the police had planned to come up with a database which was to be maintained in every police station,” Vinayak said.

The officer said the plan came a cropper with only three to five per cent of the residents actually returning the application forms.

“There was a sort of reluctance. A majority of these applications were never returned. It will be wrong to state that the police have got a comprehensive database in hand. Once we have that, it would be easy for the police to know the houses where the elderly reside. But no one seemed interested,” he said.

The DIG said that till this evening, no breakthrough had been made in the murder of Yadav.

“There are a number of issues which are being verified. Right now, the police cannot make a concrete comment on the same. The fact that the deceased’s body was dragged and left near the back door of the house is a mystery even now. The police have certain leads and are working on them. The case will be solved,” Vinayak said.

Police sources said there were several unanswered questions such as why the assailants chose to drag Yadav’s body.