Even as elections are round the corner, a series of crimes like dacoity, snatching and firing have rocked the State capital throwing up a major challenge to the Commissionerate police.
On Saturday, two miscreants opened fire at a security guard of a marriage mandap on Tankapani Road under the Badagada police station. While the reason behind the attack is yet to be ascertained, it is being suspected that the assailants had come looking for the owner of the marriage mandap.
The guard Gyanendra Mallick, who received bullet injuries on his left shoulder, was initially admitted to the Capital Hospital and later shifted to a private hospital as his condition deteriorated.
Sources said the two miscreants called Mallick, who was on duty at the Kalyan Mandap and asked him about the whereabouts of the owner. After knowing from Mallick that the owner was not present at the mandap, they asked him water. When Mallick went near them, they opened fire at him.
Police rushed to the spot after getting information and started investigation into the incident.
In another incident, two unidentified miscreants attacked two youths with stones and lathis while they were sleeping on a footpath near Master Canteen late on Friday night. The injured youths were admitted to the Capital Hospital.
On the wee hours of Friday, a former Army officer was looted and attacked with sharp weapons by some armed miscreants when he was on morning walk with his wife near Raghunathpur on the Patia- Nandankanan Road.
Similarly, five bike-borne assailants looted gold ornaments from a woman at gunpoint and attacked her husband and a neighbour with sharp weapons at Sailashree Vihar on Friday early morning. The series of crimes have shell-shocked the city residents.