From a school principal to a vigilance investigation bureau employee, hardly anybody is safe in Patna.

Principal of the nursery section of Ankur Public School Neelam Sharma was murdered at her Rajiv Nagar home-cum-institution in daylight on Friday. Criminals snatched gold chain of Gauri Verma, an employee of the vigilance investigation bureau, at gunpoint after brutally assaulting her on Circular Road behind the chief minister’s residence, a few hours before Neelam’s murder.

Both the incidents paint a sorry picture of policing in the state capital. Worse, the perpetrators of the crimes appear to be least scared of cops.

Gauri still has some solace. Police claimed to have apprehended three persons in connection with her assault. But Neelam’s kin are yet to get any such balm. The police are still groping in the dark in the case.

The audacity of the criminals can be gauged from the fact that they entered the house of Neelam in daylight. After killing her, they ransacked her home least scared of getting nabbed.

Neelam’s husband, Sanjay Kumar, was away from home when the crime was committed. Two days on, he is in a state of shock.

“Please leave us alone. Ask the police about the progress in case,” said Kumar, when a reporter sought to know about the police action in the case.

Peeved at the police’s failure to arrest the killers of Neelam, the Bihar Public School and Children Welfare Association (BPSCWA) has announced to launch an agitation from Monday.

“A protest march will be taken out from Kargil Chowk to Raj Bhavan in protest against the murder of the principal of the school,” said D.K. Singh, the chairman of BPSCWA.

A delegation of the BPSCWA visited the residence of director-general of police (DGP) Abhayanand on Sunday morning and submitted a memorandum seeking immediate arrest of the criminals involved in the murder of Neelam and security to her family members.

The memorandum also demanded intensified patrolling near all public schools in the capital and to check the spiralling crime graph. “We went to meet the DGP personally at his residence, but he had left by the time we reached there. He talked with the members of the delegation over the phone and assured them of bringing the perpetrators of the crime to book at the earliest,” Sharma said.

The DGP told the delegation that the case was being probed scientifically. “Evidence has been gathered from the scene of the crime. Forensic experts have been pressed into service to crack the case,” Sharma quoted the DGP as saying.

“The gathered evidence are being analysed and we hope to achieve a breakthrough soon,” the DGP said.

Neelam’s murder is one of the several cases in which the state police fumbled recently. The force came under severe criticism for the alleged mishandling of the case related to the murder of a 25-year-old Assam student Pritam Bhattacharjee. His body was found near Kataria police station at Naugachia in Bhagalpur district on July 15. Pritam was going to Delhi by Awadh-Assam Express to appear in PhD enrolment examination in Jawaharlal Nehru University. He went missing from Naugachia railway station on July 9.

Pritam was alive till July 14, but the police could not trace his whereabouts. The men in uniform fared poorly after his death also. They are groping in the dark still.

The DGP said: “The police have got some important leads and the investigation is now proceeding in the right direction. We hope to solve the case in two-three days as raids are on to arrest the culprits.”

Besides the principal and the Assam student murder cases, the police failed miserably to contain the reign of terror unleashed by the alleged supporters of the murdered Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh “Mukhiya” on June 2 in the state capital. The Mukhiya supporters ransacked roadside shops, set several vehicles on fire and assaulted innocent people.

The DGP, who was under the attack from all quarters for allegedly not allowing the police to intervene, had announced that those taking the law in their hands would be dealt with sternly and the case would be put on speedy trial. One-and-a-half months later, only nine persons have been sent to jail in the case. The rest are yet to be identified.