Yet another spate of kidnappings rock Bihar

After the kidnapping of Kislay and two other school children in the past one month in Bihar which became a major poll issue, another boy, a student of standard VII, was taken hostage by unidentified gunmen in Samastipur district.

Heavily armed persons raided the house of a retired Principal of a school, Ramanarayan Prasad Singh, late on Saturday night and kidnapped his 12-year-old nephew Harsh Ranjan at gunpoint, police said on Sunday.

The gunmen looted cash and valuables worth over a lakh during their three-hour operation and mercilessly beat up Singh's family members when they resisted, police said.

Harsh Ranjan is son of Vishnudeo Prasad, brother of the retired Principal.

When contacted, Superintendent of Police Meghnath Ram said he had deputed a DSP-rank official to probe the case.

Police were conducting raids at different places to rescue the child and track down the kidnappers. Singh had lodged an FIR with police in connection with the abduction.

Earlier, kidnapping of Kislay, a student of Delhi Public School, and Dipak and Ravikant, students of DAV Public Schools in Bhagalpur and Biharsharif, had triggered widespread protests in the state.

Students and their guardians staged relay fast, offered mass prayers and gheraoed the Raj Bhavan to press for their release.

While Kislay and Dipak were released by their kidnappers just a day before the first phase of assembly polls in Bihar on February 3, Ravikant returned to his Biharsharif house on Saturday.

Youth abducted

Bihar police are suspicious about yet another reported abduction in the state because the family of the victim filed a complaint four days after the youth went missing.