Patna: A fresh wave of fear has gripped the medical community in Bihar, in the aftermath of the daylight kidnapping of a doctor and his wife.
The state saw as many as 39 leading doctors kidnapped for ransom by gangs during the previous Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) regime.
The incumbent Janata Dal (United) government is running with the support of the RJD.
Dr Pankaj Kumar Gupta, a prominent physician, and his businesswoman wife Shubhra Gupta, who owns a branded garment show room, were returning to their home in Gaya district after attending a marriage in neighbouring Jharkhand town, when they were allegedly kidnapped from the busy Grand Truck Road around noon on Friday. Three days after their kidnapping, there is no trace of the abducted couple, and the family members are yet to receive any ransom calls.
With the opposition and the Indian Medical Association stepping up pressure on the ruling regime, the state government has asked police to safely recover the victims, but investigators police remain clueless about the couple’s whereabouts.
The police said that the victims were apparently picked by a highly professional inter-state gang of kidnappers.
“We are investigating the case from all angles. As there have been no ransom calls yet, it is difficult to say anything at this moment,” Bihar’s director-general of police P.K. Thakur told the media on Monday.
“A special police team has been formed for the safe recovery of the kidnapped couple. We have got certain leads in the case and are trying hard to safely recover the victims,” P. Kannan, the local Gaya district police superintendent, said.
However, the medical community in the state has become restive over the delay and has threatened to strike work if the victims are not recovered in the next 48 hours.
“We have given sufficient time to the state administration to act, but if it fails to recover the victims till the expiry of deadline, we will have no option but to resort to strike,” IMA’s senior vice-president Dr Sahajanand Prasad Singh said, alleging that the doctors’ community was slowly becoming the target of criminals once again.
According to the latest report by the IMA, a total of 39 doctors have been kidnapped in Bihar since 1990 — the year when the RJD headed by Lalu Prasad came to power in the state and ruled for the next 15 years.
Of those abducted, 10 were murdered for failing to pay ransom or other reasons, while 16 doctors were kidnapped in between 2001 and 2002, when RJD chief Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi ruled.
In January this year, the criminals had sought ransoms from as many as 20 doctors from Bihar. Of these victims, three even allegedly credited money in the bank accounts of the kidnappers. The matter came to light after the police arrested a criminal from east Champaran district.
“The horrible memory of ‘Jungle Raj’ has come to haunt Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as he shook hands with Lalu Prasad to run his government. Everyone in the state is just living under constant panic,” former BJP deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi alleged. He said that the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the state had destroyed the networks of criminals and ended kidnapping, which had flourished during the RJD rule, but the present handshake between Kumar and Prasad had once again emboldened the criminals which is evident from the sudden spurt in kidnapping instances.
