Patna, May 11: The state capital, it seems, is sliding back to the dark days, as far as crime incidents are concerned.

The recent spate of crime activities, be it theft, robbery, kidnapping for ransom, rape and others have come as a challenge for the police besides giving the people of Patna sleepless nights.

The police talk about recoveries and arrests but the fact lies that the city has suddenly witnessed a spurt in the number of criminal incidents.

On May 9, Patna witnessed two murders, one of a young woman whose body was recovered from Alamganj police station area and the second was the murder of a young trader in the Digha area.

Two men barged into the house of a retired professor of JD Women’s College, assaulted and locked her in the bathroom of her flat on the third floor and decamped with cash and jewellery worth Rs 3 lakh on May 8. She was a resident of Arya Apartment under Shastri Nagar police station.

On May 4, police recovered the body of 15-year-old Rohit Kumar, who was kidnapped and killed by his friends for money. On May 2, 12 armed men barged into Tirupati Steel Factory under Agamkuan police station and robbed more than Rs 30,000 from the employees.

On April 28, criminals entered the house of Sunil Kumar Sharma and decamped with cash and jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh. Sharma, a resident of AG Colony area under Shastrinagar police station was not in the house when the robbery took place. Forty-year-old Mohammed Firoz was shot dead by at least five armed criminals in daylight on April 27, barely 30m away from his residence at Fakirbara locality in Lodhikatwa under Khajekala police station of Patna City.

On April 11, thieves entered the house of Vimal Kant Prasad, a resident of Anandpuri under SK Puri police station and decamped with a laptop, a Blackberry phone and another mobile handset.

Prior to this incident, thieves entered the first floor of the Himgiri Apartment in the same locality and stole a laptop. On April 15, criminals got into the house of a journalist, again through the balcony and decamped with two laptops, one cellphone and a gold ring total worth Rs 2 lakh.

A 10-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and then murdered in an onion field, just 2km away from the Patna Sahib Railway station under Bypass police station of Patna City on April 21.

The police, while accepting the fact that the incidents have increased, said that criminals are also being nabbed.

“We have arrested the two victims involved in the sexual assault of the 10-year-old girl. Also, the police have arrested the two boys involved in the killing of Rohit Kumar. The auto drivers behind the rape of the girl from Bengal on April 12 have been arrested. Then, three people who had kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl, a resident of the Kamla Nehru Nagar under Kotwali police station have also been nabbed. It will be wrong to say there has been no police action. However, one cannot deny the fact that such incidents have increased,” a police officer requesting anonymity said. Earlier, Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Alok Kumar had been stressing that the police had made breakthroughs in several cases.

“The police are doing their job. There are a few pending cases. Many have been arrested and the majority of the cases have been solved,” he said. However, the crime figures with the state police headquarters for January and February shows that incidents have shot up.

The number of murders in January this year stood at 15, which went up to 27 in February. While the number of dacoities was less, robbery cases rose from six in January to 11 in February.