People block railways in protest against the recent abduction of a trader in Bihar.

A surge in crime rate has been witnessed in Bihar in the wake of the massive victory of the Grand Alliance in the recent Assembly elections, throwing a big challenge to chief minister-elect Nitish Kumar, who is due to take oath in Patna on Friday.

A fertiliser trader Harishankar Singh was kidnapped at gun point while he was on a morning walk at the railway station at Panchrukhi in Siwan district on Sunday.

Eyewitness told police that Singh was accosted by six armed criminals, who forcibly took him away in a vehicle. Angry over the incident, the locals blocked the national highway as well as the railway tracks disrupting the vehicular and train traffic for several hours.

Demanding immediate recovery of the abducted businessman, the mob also resorted to arson.

The cops brought the situation under control after reassuring the people that Singh would be safely recovered. The police subsequently conducted raids at several places but had not recovered him so far.

The trader's abduction took place a day after a contractor was gunned down in Muzaffarpur district over tender rivalry. On Saturday morning, armed assailants on a motorcycle fired at Dharmendra Yadav from point-blank range at 5:30 am near Sherna village under Kanti police station.

The 32-year-old victim, who was a railway contractor at Kanti, died on the spot. Irate mob torched a police vehicle and an eatery in protest against the incident. The mob also blocked the national highway, railway lines and assaulted some cops forcing the local policemen to open fire in the air. A police rifle was also looted in the incident which was subsequently recovered.

The police suspected the killing to be the work of a gang headed by a jailed criminal allegedly over railway tenders. In another incident in Katihar district on Friday night, a liquor trader Shambhu Nayak was shot dead while he was returning home after closing his shop.