Two back-to-back burglaries at a high-end motorbike showroom and a house in the state capital over the extended weekend sent police scurrying to save their faces.

In the first incident, criminals broke into the showroom of Ambey Motors, an authorised dealer of Royal Enfield bikes located in the upscale Patliputra Colony, and fled with cash and bike accessories worth around Rs 17 lakh.

Shailesh Singh, the proprietor of the dealership, said: "As the banks were closed for three consecutive days (Saturday, Sunday and Monday), we had stored Rs 13 lakh in the showroom locker. When the guard, Surendra Singh, reached the showroom on Tuesday morning, he found the two locks of the shutters missing.

Getting suspicious, the guard alerted some employees of the showroom."

Singh and other employees reached the spot immediately only to discover that the cash kept in the showroom locker had gone missing.

The bike accessories such as silencers, helmets, T-shirts and gloves apart from others had gone missing too. The showroom employees used to switch off the CCTV cameras when shutting the showroom.

Singh said: "Last year, a short-circuit had occurred at the showroom following which we decided to switch off all electric switches before leaving the showroom." However, the CCTV cameras installed outside the adjacent shop has captured images of three men entering the showroom.

According to the showroom employees, the incident occurred between 1am and 1.30am on Monday night going by the footage captured on the CCTV of the next shop. However, Patliputra police are yet to lodge a complaint in this connection.

Patliputra police station station house officer T.N. Tiwari said: "The showroom owner have not lodged any complaint in this connection as they were making an inventory of missing accessories from the showroom."

The showroom located on the main road of Patliputra Colony is around 500m from Patliputra police station.

In the other incident, burglars barged into the house of one Mohammed Adil at Ali Nagar area in Gardanibagh and decamped with cash and other household items.

Sardendu Saran, the SHO of Gardanibagh police station, said: "The theft occurred at the house of Mohammed Adil on Monday night. Adil, a tenant at the house of Mohammed Naushad, lives on the ground floor of the house. On Tuesday morning, when Naushad woke up, he found the door of Adil's house ajar and household items strewn around."

The SHO added: "We are yet to ascertain the loss as Mohammed Adil has not given the details of items missing from his house."

The two burglaries indicate weak policing in Patna. Last week, criminals had looted cash and other household items worth Rs 2.5 lakh from the house of an advocate, Vikash Ratan Bharti, in Gandhi Nagar under the jurisdiction of Rajiv Nagar police station.

An SHO said: "Our work load has gone up recently. Besides checking crimes, our major focus now is to implement liquor prohibition with limited police personnel."

Sources attributed absence of night patrolling to rise in crime. Patel Nagar resident Ravindra Sharan said: "A few years ago, cops used to patrol on cycle but in the past six months, we have not seen any patrolling in our area."