The Nitish Kumar government is under pressure from the Opposition after six murder cases, including that of three minors, were reported from across the state in the past one day.

A 16-year-old boy was allegedly abducted and murdered in Patna after the kidnapper reportedly did not receive the ransom money, News 18 reported on Friday. The Class 9 student, the son of a property dealer in Patna, was allegedly abducted on Wednesday when he was on his way to school. His father filed a complaint with the police station in the city’s Agam Kuan locality, and a police team led by Superintendent Of Police Vishal Sharma was set up to look for the boy.

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Sudheer Kumar, the boy’s father, said the police had kept him in the dark for the past two days and had assured him that they would rescue his son.

The police found his body at a shop in Sandalpur on Friday and arrested his neighbour Vicky Kumar. He reportedly confessed to have kidnapped the teenager and beat him to death when he put up a fight.

Meanwhile, the police in the city of Bettiah, 150 km from Patna, found the body of a seven-year-old son of a farmer, who had gone missing on Thursday. The Superintendent of Police in West Champaran, Jayant Kant, said the child was sodomised before being killed, the Hindustan Times reported.

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The other murders reported were that of a five-year-old boy and a 52-year-old priest at Sasaram in Rohtas district; 38-year-old Prem Lal Shah; and a government employee’s 29-year-old son Rajendra Rai in Muzaffarpur.

The Opposition criticised the government, and said these incidents hark back to the days of lawlessness that prevailed in the state in the 1990s during the rule of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. “The government seems to have completely lost control of law and order situation in the state,” the Hindustan Times quoted the acting state Congress President Kaukab Quadri as saying.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav visited the family of the teenager murdered in Patna. He criticised the government for failing to stop murders and kidnappings in the state, and claimed that criminals were ruling the roost in Bihar even as the government maintained a stoic silence.