Safety of senior citizens in the city has again come under the scanner with burglars breaking into the house of a retired IPS officer in the dead of night and leaving with cash and documents.

At least three thieves struck at the house of septuagenarian Shiv Chandra Jha at Nehru Nagar a little after midnight on Monday, but were forced to beat a hasty retreat when the ex-top cop sounded the alarm. Jha, 70, retired as director-general (home guards) in July 2008.

The former cop, a widower whose children live outside Bihar, and his caretaker, Mahesh Kumar, were inside the two-storey house when the burglars made their way in by breaking the ground floor kitchen window grille around 1am.

Police sources said the miscreants then climbed up to Jha's bedroom on the first floor and took away a bag containing cash Rs 10,000 and some documents. But Jha, who is ill, woke up on hearing the noise and called out for the caretaker who was sleeping in another room.

The police sources said that before Mahesh could reach Jha's bedroom, the burglars had scampered off with Jha's cash and another Rs 3,000 belonging to the caretaker which was kept in another bag.

'Prima facie it appears that local miscreants have committed the incident. The police, based on CCTV footage, have come to know that three miscreants, who are around 20 to 25 years in age, entered the house with their faces covered,' said deputy superintendent of police, law and order, Shibli Nomani.

'The police have recovered the bag of Jha containing documents five hundred metres away from the house,' Nomani added.

The officer said the way the crime was committed indicates the hand of local miscreants who knew that Jha lived alone in the house. Sources said the police have detained some local history-sheeters for questioning.

Jha refused to talk to the media saying he had lodged a complaint with the Patliputra police station which looks after Nehru Nagar.

Residents of the locality, which comprises middle and upper middle class households as well as slums and cattle-sheds ( khatals), alleged lack of police patrolling as the reason behind such crimes. 'The Patliputra police station is just a kilometre away from Nehru Nagar, but the police rarely patrol the area at night,' said Mahendra Prasad, a resident.

In a city that continues to lose its young to better career opportunities outside, many elderly people don't have their children around when an emergency strikes. This means they are dependent almost entirely on domestic helps or neighbours and even strangers, leaving them vulnerable to crime.

This is not the first time that criminals have targeted a police officer's house. In March this year, burglars entered the house of deputy inspector-general, training, Vikash Vaibhav and fled with Rs 7,000 cash belonging to the officer's cook. The thieves entered the house after scaling the boundary wall. As the gates of Vaibhav's house were locked from inside, the thieves targeted the servants' quarters, located on the same campus of the officer's bungalow. The Patna police had transferred Shastri Nagar police station SHO Birendra Yadav following the incident.