Murders across Bihar: Spate of crimes threatens Nitish Kumar's development narrative ahead of elections

ed in Bihar — an indispensable change from the days of the 'jungle raj'. The killings come even as the Nitish Kumar government has been on a spree to launch various infra projects across the state with an eye on the assembly polls.

A recent spike in high-profile killings across Bihar have raised security concerns about the state which was once known as India’s “crime capital”.

The killings are in stark contrast to the development agenda that the NDA government has pushed in Bihar — an indispensable change from the days of the 'jungle raj'.

The killings come even as the Nitish Kumar government has been on a spree to launch various infra projects across the state with an eye on the assembly polls. From a new airport terminal worth Rs 1,200 crore to the new Ganga bridge, various developmental projects have been recently inaugurated in the state. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bihar at least thrice this year. In every rally, PM Modi was heard saying how these projects would usher in a new era in the state.

However, with these alleged murders, the Nitish regime's key catchphrase that it has used to describe the 15-year RJD rule in Bihar from 1990 to 2005, may have returned to haunt it.

Following the murder of industrialist Gopal Khemka last week, the state has witnessed sporadic incidents of crime across the state.

While Khemka was shot dead by an unidentified armed assailant last week, a government engineer was allegedly stabbed to death by robbers in front of his family in Muzaffarpur district. Mohammad Mumtaz, a junior engineer, was stabbed to death at his house in Madipur in the Kazi Mohammadpur police station area around 3 am, according to officials.

In Patna, businessman Ajeet Kumar was shot dead in the Khagaul area on Sunday night. It is being said that the murder seems to have been orchestrated from inside Beur jail by a gangster, bringing Bihar’s infamous jail-crime-supari (contract killing) nexus to the fore yet again.

In Nalanda, two people were shot dead on Monday after a dispute among children of two families turned violent. The incident occurred in Dumrawan village of Nalanda on Sunday night when the two families opened fire at each other during the dispute. The victims were identified as Annu Kumari (22) and 24-year-old Himanshu Kumar.

Nitish Kumar became the chief minister for the first time in 2000. The RJD always claimed that the crime rate doubled during Nitish’s regime.

According to the 2004 NCRB data, when Rabri Devi was still in power, Bihar’s crime rate was 122.4 per lakh population. This increased by 34.6 percent to 164.8 in 2019.

In 2021, a total of 1,15,216 cases of crime were reported in the last year of the RJD government in Bihar in 2004, while after 15 years in the Nitish government, the total crime figures in the year 2019 increased to 2,69,096, more than double.

The Bihar government has assured that security concerns would be addressed. However, not only the Opposition but the state government’s allies are also questioning the law and order situation of Bihar.

RJD leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav has asked why the Nitish regime cannot be called jungle raj.

"Every month, businessmen are being killed in Bihar, but we can't call it jungle raj?" he asked, adding tongue-in-cheek, "This is what the scriptures have called media management, perception management and image management,” Tejashwi wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP and Nitish Kumar of turning the state into “India’s crime capital”.

In a strongly worded tweet in Hindi, Rahul Gandhi called for an urgent change, stating that crime has become the “new normal” in Bihar and that the government has failed to ensure the safety of its citizens.

Even NDA ally Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Chirag Paswan said the crime in the state is at its peak. “…. the fact that such an incident was carried out by criminals in the home district of the honorable Chief Minister clearly indicates that the morale of criminals is at its highest,” Paswan wrote on X on the Nalanda double murder.