A still from Slumdog Millionaire, in which the protagonist and his brother took to crime at a very early age. Telegraph picture

Patna, May 25: The recent spate of crime incidents in which the culprits turned out to be teenagers has come as a shock for the police as well as residents of the capital.

The police claim they have very less to do to in such cases and appealed to the parents to take care of their children and stay alert.

On May 22, criminals entered the flat of retired professor Nilu Singh at the Patel Nagar-based Arya Apartment and decamped with cash and valuables worth Rs 5 lakh. Among the five arrested, two were students of Class X and XII of city-based schools and the third was an intermediate student.

Earlier on May 4, police fished out the body of 15-year-old Rohit Kumar, a resident of Magistrate Colony from a boring well on the outskirts of Patna. Rohit, a student of Class X of DAV, Khagaul went missing since May 1 after he had gone for his IIT-JEE tuitions.

On May 4 night, police said Rohit’s friends Vishal and Anand had abducted and murdered him as a part of the plan to use the ransom money to have fun. Vishal, the brain behind the plan was a relative of the deceased and the duo had slit the boy’s throat with a blade after making him sip a cold drink laced with chloroform.

On April 25, the police recovered the body of a 10-year-old girl from a field under Bypass police station. The post-mortem report revealed the girl, who went missing from Patna Sahib railway station on April 21 was raped before being killed. The police had started a hunt and arrested two teenagers, aged 16 and 18.

Interrogations revealed the youths, both rickshaw pullers, watched pornographic films quite frequently.

Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar said: “The teenagers, somehow get into wrong company and indulge in serious crime. The police cannot do much in this. It is the job of parents. They should keep an eye on their children. Constant talks with children and counselling, if required, should be done,” he added.

City psychiatrists, too, felt that parents needed to be careful. “Most parents, these days are too busy and have little or no time for their children. They don’t know what their wards are doing and whom are they meeting. This is something very dangerous. When the teenagers do something wrong, the parents start blaming the child’s friends. Have they ever realised why did their children get into bad company? The parents, have a responsibility and they should take care of it properly,” said Sujit Kumar, a city-based psychiatrist.