Bhubaneswar, July 24: The city has witnessed at least four incidents of shooting in the last one month. The inability of the police to arrest any of the culprits has raised serious concerns among the residents.

The police said in most cases, these criminals fired to terrorise their victims before looting them. However, the inability of the police to arrest the attackers has become a cause for worry.

A police officer said that following the recent cases of custodial death and torture, they were reluctant to take any steps against the criminals. “We are under pressure because senior officials are instructing not to keep any accused in custody at night. At the same time, the human rights body is keeping a watch on us. It’s not always possible to arrest the criminals during the day and produce them in the court immediately,” said the police officer on the condition of anonymity.

In the latest incident, two motorcycle-borne youths shot at and injured the driver of a private company before looting Rs 4.50 lakh in cash from the manager of the same firm at Jatni market on Monday morning. The injured driver is being treated at a private hospital in the city. The manager, Prakash Sahu, who lodged a complaint with the police, said the unmasked hoodlums fired six rounds at them in full public view. Though Jatni police and special squad officials have been conducting raids at various places, they have not been able to arrest anyone. “As the manager was not hurt in the firing, we have seized his mobile phone and are checking his call details. We are also questioning him,” said inspector in charge of Jatni police station K.K. Panigrahi.

Apart from this one, there have been two instances in the past month in which the police are yet to arrest the criminals.

On the night of July 5, two motorcycle-borne youths snatched a gold chain from Lipika Nayak, 25, of BJB Nagar. When she tried to raise an alarm, they fired in the air. On the night of June 23, a youth suffered injuries at Kharavela Nagar when a group of youths attacked him with sharp weapons and shot at him before taking away his motorcycle. On the same night, three goons looted the motorcycle of a person at Saheed Nagar area at gunpoint.

Police earlier thought these crimes to be the work of a gang, but could not make any headway in the probe. A senior police officer said criminals nowadays were carrying out crimes at gunpoint, which was a new trend.