Police have decided to make registration of private lodges and their boarders with them mandatory to put a check on crimes at abodes of thousands of students and professionals.

From this week, the men in uniform would start registering details of lodges and private hostels and their boarders in two sets of forms (See graphics). The filled-up data would then be verified.

Elaborating the plan, Patna City deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Sushil Kumar told The Telegraph: “We would first cover areas under Patna City, which has more than 800 hostels. The forms would be available at police stations, with sectors in-charge and Quick Mobile teams in a week’s time. The forms can also be downloaded from the Patna police website.

“We want to maintain a database of the number of lodges and details of their owners and boarders in simple, easy-to-fill-up forms. We have decided to launch the drive from Patna City, as it has more than half of the lodges in the state capital,” the officer said.

Hailing the drive, Ajay Kumar, the owner of Hansraj Lodge at Khajekala, said: “I appreciate the move. A lot of students and professionals stay in lodges. Criminals too take shelter in such places. So police verification is vital. But the question remains whether the cops would conduct the drive properly or not.”

Kumar, the DSP, said: “Lodge owners would have to give the filled-in forms to the local police station house officer (SHO). The SHO would then verify it and write comments to maintain it as a record. Boarders will also have to fill up forms and give them to the lodge owners, who would submit them to the SHO.”

The officer said it would be the lodge owners’ responsibility to notify the police about a particular boarder’s departure and a new one’s arrival.

“The police would visit different lodges and distribute the forms,” Kumar said.

Criminal incidents have become common at lodges in the capital.

On July 6, the police recovered a middle-aged man’s body at a lodge in Gorea Toli under the jurisdiction of Kotwali police station. The deceased had arrived with an elderly man the previous day, who had disappeared. In June this year, a student of National Institute of Technology staying in a private lodge in Patna City, was abducted. In March, a boarder of a private lodge at Jakkanpur was murdered.

“The aim is to stop such incidents. In the second phase of the drive, we will cover other parts of Patna and include tenants at private residences and flats,” another police officer said.