Patna, Sept. 21: Flats are fine till criminals barge in. If they do, you are at their mercy.

Your scared neighbours might not be able to muster courage to come to your rescue. Expecting cops to shield you is too high an expectation.

The apartment residents suffer from an uncanny fear each time there is a knock on their door at night. The murder of Rishi Kesh Muni, a student of RP Sharma Institute of Technology, yesterday after being dragged out of his home in Om Sharnam Apartments in Punaichak would make them shakier.

The killing of Muni in the Shastrinagar police station area reinforced the belief that big plans of cops remain confined to books. The police had convened a meeting in December last year after a spurt in theft in apartments. But the decisions taken in the meet were hardly implemented.

The Quick Mobile Service wing of the police was supposed to check if entries were being made in the visitors’ registers at apartments. The background of guards was to be verified. But the overburdened police force could hardly do these.

In May this year, the police announced that cops would visit every flat to take down the details of people residing in apartments. The plan included making a list of the residents, especially the elderly persons living alone, and their regular visitors like maids and milkmen. But the plan is yet to gain steam.

“The process of making the list is on slowly. One requires a lot of time and manpower to create an exhaustive database,” another officer said.

The residents of the apartments should also take the blame for the security concerns. The police suggested them to install CCTV cameras at the entrance of the flats. But there was cold response to the proposal.

“The apartment associations had promised they would install CCTV cameras. But they did not,” a senior police officer said.

The fallout of soft policing and lack of seriousness among the apartment residents on safety are the crimes like the murder of Muni or thefts.

On July 25 this year, a group of four drunken youths suddenly entered into a flat at DD Apartment in Ashiana Nagar and beat up its owner, a lawyer, and his sister.