Patna, July 21: Caste seems to be the predominant factor in judging the seriousness of acts of crime in the state capital. At least that is what senior police officers suspect.

The city police headquarters had asked all police stations of Patna City as well as those located in the urban areas to forward a list of criminals they considered were the most wanted men in areas under their jurisdiction. But when the lists arrived, senior officers were in for a shock. Now, the police stations have received fresh orders to carry out proper investigation and find notorious criminals in their areas and put forward a fresh list, this time, with no anomalies.

“The lists given by most police stations do not really look convincing. There are several factors which have been ignored and it seems that the police stations have not made a proper and a detailed study before forwarding the list. There are several confusing facts and they have been asked to put things straight with a new and a proper list,” the Patna city superintendent of police told The Telegraph.

For example, Vicky Paswan’s name is among biggest criminals in Khajekala police station area of Patna City. Only two cases under the Arms Act are lodged against him from 2007. Two cases under the Arms Act are lodged against Mantu Paswan, one in 1999 and the other in 2000. One Rinku Halwai too has his name in the list with an Arms Act case against him lodged in 2008.

Sources said senior officers suspect that the lists have been compiled keeping the caste factor in consideration.

“Most of the names here belong to Paswans and the cases too are old ones with FIRs lodged years ago. If these men are already serving jail sentences, how come their names figure in this list? And why are most of the criminals from the same caste? The police station needs to answer these questions. They need to find out as to whether the people whose names are in the list are still roaming free or serving sentences,” a senior police officer said.

The list of Agamkuan police station looks a bit decent in comparison. At the top, it carries the name of Prem Sahni, who has been charged with serious crimes such as murder, loot and dacoity. Bind Paswan, alias Binda, whose name figures in the list, has got serious criminal cases against him. Sanjay Kumar, Hariram Pandey, Kishori Pandey and Pramod Kumar are all charged with committing dacoities.

“What is important however is that where are these men now? Are they out absconding or whether they are in jail? If they are in jail, there names shouldn’t be in this list. The police are talking about the most wanted criminals under each police station,” the officer said.

At Alamganj police station, when it comes to caste, names of members of the lower strata fill up the list. There is Sonu Dom, Kallu Dom and Ajay Dom have loot and dacoity cases against them.

Buddha Colony police station of Patna urban seems to have criminals belonging to the Yadav caste only.

The police added that unlike earlier, there was no proper crime pattern in Patna now.

The officer said that the criminals now are scattered all over without a particular gang and most of them work individually.

“There is no fixed pattern right now. So making a full-fledged and a very compact list of top 10 wanted criminals in Patna is difficult,” city superintendent of police Shivdeep Lande added.