Police personnel inspect Ganesh’s autorickshaw in Patna City on Tuesday. Picture by Sachin

Patna, July 5: An autorickshaw driver was shot at late last night in the Karmali area under Malsalami police station of Patna City.

The incident comes a day after criminals shot at a truck driver near NH-30 after a failed loot attempt. The victim, identified as Ganesh Kumar (35), is in a critical condition at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) with a bullet wound in his stomach.

While the police are still probing the matter with no arrests as yet, a relative of Ganesh told The Telegraph that at around 9.30pm on Monday, two persons came to Ganesh’s house and booked his autorickshaw saying they had to go to the Patna Sahib area. Ganesh lives with his family in the Ashok Chakra Gali area under Malsalami police station.

“Both the men said they had to go to Patna Sahib urgently and needed the autorickshaw. The men offered good money to him and Ganesh agreed to drop them. At around 11.30pm, an unknown person escorted Ganesh to his home, who was seated on his bike and bleeding. Ganesh had been shot in the stomach. We immediately took him to PMCH,” the relative said. The autorickshaw was later recovered by the police at the Karmali area.

“There is blood spattered all over the vehicle. It doesn’t seem to be a crime for loot. The man was called by the two men from his home. The police cannot say with certainty at this moment that it was those two men who had shot him. He could have been shot at by someone else on his way back. The police are looking into all possibilities and the case is being investigated,” an officer said.

With these two back-to-back incidents, the situation of the capital and particularly Patna City has worsened. The area has witnessed at least a dozen murders in just two months time. Though there have been arrests in some of the cases, the growing number of incidents have infused terror among the residents.

On June 17, jeweller Manoj Kumar Gupta was shot dead near the Gai Ghat area under the Alamganj police station. The criminals then decamped with 1kg of ornaments. The police have arrested five people involved in the murder.

On June 21, Pramod Kumar Sah in Chutkiya Bazaar under the Malsalami police station was killed. The police arrested a person. One Prabhat Kumar was murdered on June 22 under the Khajekala police station area. There have been no arrests in the case so far.

On June 27, one Rajendra Gupta, a makeshift stall owner at the Tripolia area under Alamganj police station, was murdered. There have been no breakthroughs in the case as yet. Pappu Gope in the Fatuha area of Patna City was murdered on May 4. The police are still looking into the matter.

On May 9, a body was recovered from a pond under Alamganj police station area. The body has not been recognised till date. One Mohammed Rashid, a resident of Manas Path under Khajekala police station was murdered on May 11. The police later arrested his wife and her lover.

Police said while arrests have been made in quite a few incidents, they were investigating the rest of the cases.