RJD targets Nitish Kumar on cop killing, crime rise

Patna: Already facing flak over the rising crime graph in Bihar, the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government suffered a fresh setback when a police constable was shot dead by criminals during a raid in Patna earlier this week.

The incident occurred when a team led by slain constable Mukesh Kumar went to arrest notorious criminal Ujwal, who is accused in several murder cases. The incident has given ammunition to the Opposition parties who have been hinting at using the alleged "lawlessness" in the state as an agenda during the 2019 general elections. Former chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Rabri Devi while terming the current scenario as "Maha jungle raj" said, "Nitish Kumar's good governance policy has failed. There is chaos in the state. Incidents of murder, kidnapping, loot and rape have gone up in the last one year."

A leader of the ruling JD(U) dismissed allegations of lawlessness. "Nitishji has brought about a huge change in the situation ever since he took over as chief minister," said a JD(U) legislator.

Political observers claim that Nitish Kumar's foremost agenda was to end "Jungle Raj" in Bihar when he came to power for the first time in 2005. Several criminals were arrested and later convicted and sent to jails, resulting in a massive electoral loss to the RJD.

The current issue of poor law and order situation was also raised in both the Houses of the legislature during the Winter Session last month. While blaming the state government for "evading discussions" during the Assembly session, Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav said, "The number of crimes has doubled in the last one year but the state government has not been able to take corrective measures.”  

The Opposition says that the crime graph started climbing after the JD(U) returned to NDA fold and formed a government with BJP in July 2017.

"Nitish Kumar has been silent over the issue," Mr Yadav said.

Crime data of Bihar reveals that cognizable crime between August 2017 and September 2018 went up by 15 per cent.

In the last one year, police registered over two lakh criminal cases of which 2,295 were murders and 1,181 rapes. In August and September, around 600 cases of murder were registered.

Between November 2015 and July 2017 — the period when JD(U) was part of the grand secular alliance government in Bihar — the number of registered cases was below two lakh.  During this period, around 2,400 murders and 1,000 rape cases were reported.