Residents of a Bhagalpur village wrote " Hum chor hain (We are thieves)" on a police patrol vehicle on Saturday, giving vent to their anger at the rise in crime and the force's failure to curb it.

The irate residents of Bhataulia village in Bhagalpur district, around 200km east of Patna, held five members of the police team hostage for almost eight hours from around 2.30pm on Saturday. The officers had gone to the village under the jurisdiction of Nathnagar police station to verify the credentials of a man caught by the people for stealing vehicles in the area.

The mob freed the five cops only after senior police officers intervened.

A senior officer posted at the headquarters in Patna said: "The residents became furious after officers at Tilka Manjhi University police station pestered them (residents) to release a suspect, Chhotu, caught for allegedly stealing vehicles at the village."

R.K. Singh, a lawyer in Bhagalpur, said: "Chhotu, the younger brother of Dharmendra, a driver deputed at the University police station, was caught by the residents for stealing an autorickshaw from the village earlier in the day. The people attacked the police when they came to the village because they were agitated about their failure to curb incidents of vehicle theft." The residents also accused the police of being hand-in-glove with the vehicle lifters' gang.

The officer at the headquarters told The Telegraph: "The protesters were so angry with the police that they wrote ' Hum chor hain (We are thieves)' on the patrol vehicle with black paint."

He added that top cops at the headquarters were upset after they came to know about the incident. Bhagalpur senior superintendent of police Vivek Kumar said: "Nobody will be allowed to take the law into their hands. This sends a wrong message."

There has been a spurt in crime over the past few weeks, starting from minor clashes to extortion threats and the engineers' murder in Darbhanga that rocked the state since December 26. Two suspects in the case - the Baheri block chief Munni Devi and her husband - were arrested on Saturday for allegedly giving shelter to the four assailants. Political circles are also abuzz with Munni's political connections.

JDU spokesman Sanjay Singh released a photograph of Munni with former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, pointing at her association with the "BJP-led NDA", a link denied by Manjhi.

On Sunday evening, deputy chief minister Tejaswi tweeted: "Police nabbed the culprits of engineer's murder. Strangely main culprits are from BJP's camp who r defaming Bihar."

In a bit of political tiki-taka manoeuvring (football style of short passes made famous by the Spanish national team and Barcelona), Lalu Prasad retweeted his son's post, adding: "I hv been saying since beginning that BJP, its sponsored institutes & people r defaming Bihar. Read the article."

He was referring to a link posted with the deputy chief minister's tweet.

Director-general of police P.K. Thakur denied there has been a spurt in crime. "It's true that some incidents, which come under the category of organised crime, have been reported from some parts of the state. But the police have initiated action against the offenders," he said.

Even if action is being taken, the police are at the receiving end of the criminals too.

On Saturday, a mob in Gopalganj nearly lynched assistant sub-inspector Shishupal Singh when he and his subordinates had gone to conduct a raid at an illegal brick kiln near Pagra Bazar. The unit's licence was recently cancelled. Singh was admitted to a hospital for treatment.

In Nalanda, the Biharsharif Government Railway Police station house officer Kamlesh Rajak was also fired at by criminals. The police in that case caught five of the men and seized three country-made weapons and five cartridges from them.