Bhubaneswar, Aug. 8: A sharp rise in juvenile crime in the capital over the past few days has cops worried.

Fourteen minor boys were arrested for their alleged involvement in two different crimes in the city in the last seven days. Six of them are school students.

On Sunday, 11 minors were arrested for their alleged involvement in a bombing incident at Unit-I on Saturday night. Earlier on Saturday, three juveniles were held for stealing from a retired professor’s house at OUAT colony.

Police officers said these boys were either students of Class X or had passed matriculation and given up schooling. However, their inclination for committing crimes has shocked the police.

Talking about the bombing incident at Unit-I, inspector in-charge of Capital Police station Aseem Panda said it was the fallout of a fight between two groups of students studying at a local government school.

“One of the students of a group threw ink on a boy of another group a few days ago. Though the issue was a minor one, both groups got into fights over this whenever they came face to face. Finally, on Saturday night things went out of control,” said Panda.

Another police officer said this trend of minor boys hurling bombs at each other began recently. He said the reason behind this was the growing number of slums in the city where many thugs stay.

“In most cases these juveniles get bail easily and return to the crime world. Two 14-year-old boys living in Kedaraplli slum were arrested several times for snatching, looting and other criminal activities. But this has not stopped them,” said a police officer.

Law practitioners felt said the law should be liberal for minors.

“There are juvenile courts that deal with cases related to minors. However, the correctional centres should work properly in giving every possible help to these kids to change,” said advocate Subhranshu Dash. He said lack of parental guidance and proper education was responsible for these teenagers getting into crime.

Sociologists believe that growing consumerism is one of the reasons for the upswing in juvenile crime.

“Children in slums lack parental guidance and basic education. They become pawns in the hands of criminals,” said sociologist D. Jena.