Bihar students' Dawood hunt unfruitful

Patna: Three school students embarked on a "mission" to get-rich-quick by hunting down Dawood Ibrahim and handing over the underworld don to authorities. The sheepish students are now back home after they ran out of money.

The class nine students of St Michael High School in this Bihar capital went missing last week and only returned home after their mission to catch Dawood Ibrahim failed, said police Monday.

Patna police is stunned over their motive and mission.

Police have now appealed to parents to take greater care of their children.

"Please take care of your wards and keep a watch on their activities, so that they don't take the wrong path," Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj said.

India's top intelligence agencies are trying hard for years to catch the fugitive Dawood Ibrahim. And till date they have failed to make a breakthrough.

But the three students, either inspired by films or TV serials, decided to make plenty of money in a short span of time by catching Dawood Ibrahim.

"Three of them decided to go on their mission in school itself. They felt that by catching Dawood Ibrahim and handing him over to the Indian government, they would get crores of rupees as reward which they can use to enjoy life later," he said.

Manu Maharaj said that police got to know of their motive when they began the search to locate the three missing boys.

"Police managed to trace one of them Bipin Kumar, who said that they were not interested in studies and chalked out a plan to catch Dawood Ibrahim to make millions," he said.

Another police official, said that three boys were confident of nabbing Dawood Ibrahim.

"They decided to approach (Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United legislator) Anant Singh for financial help to catch Dawood. They tried to meet Singh but failed."

According to police officials, the students decided to go ahead with plan when they were on way to school.

"First they visited a mall before leaving Patna and reached Mokama and then went to Kolkata.

"Soon after reaching Kolkata, they realized that mission is impossible.

"They soon decided to return home as they had few hundreds left with them," police officials said.

Manoj Jha, a police official, said two separate cases had been lodged.

Manu Maharaj said parents must teach children to concentrate on their studies.

A teacher of their school said on condition of anonymity that three three boys were least bothered about their studies.