NEW DELHI: Police on Thursday attributed the recent surge in criminal activities in Bihar to pre-monsoon seasonal patterns, farmers and heightened political attention due to upcoming state elections. While addressing a press conference, Bihar’s Additional Director General of Police, Kundan Krishnan claimed that murder rates traditionally spike before the monsoon season.“Recently, there have been a number of shootings and murders across Bihar. This month of June has seen more murders than usual in recent years. Until the monsoon arrives in June, this trend continues because most farmers don’t have much work during this period,” news agency ANI quoted Krishnan as saying.“Once the rains begin, people from the agrarian community get busy, and the number of such incidents goes down. However, due to consistent media coverage of one murder after another — and given that this is also an election year — political parties have started focusing more on such incidents,” he added. “So we have formed a new cell this month. The work of that cell will be to create a database of all the former shooters, contract killers and keep an eye on them,” Krishnan said.This comes after hours after a prisoner on parole was shot by a rival gang while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Patna on Thursday morning.Recently, a series of similar shootings in the state, which is gearing up for assembly elections in a few months. The opposition has been criticising the Nitish Kumar-led government for the worsening law and order situation.Several shooting incidents have occurred in Bihar following the killing of businesman Gopal Khemka, who was shot dead outside his home in Patna earlier this month. Khemka had sought police protection for his family.A few days after Khemka’s murder, another BJP leader, Vikram Jha, was shot by an unknown attacker in Patna’s Ram Krishna Nagar area. Jha died from his injuries while being rushed to the hospital. Two individuals, a lawyer and a teacher, were shot and killed in separate incidents in Bihar’s Patna and Saran districts on Sunday.RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had earlier sharply criticised the state government, questioning if “anyone in the NDA government is willing to listen to the truth or admit their mistakes”. “And now, a BJP leader is shot dead in Patna! What to say, and to whom? Is there anyone in the NDA government willing to listen to the truth or admit their mistakes?” Tejashwi Yadav posted on X.