A spurt in crimes committed by minors in this western Orissa town has baffled law-enforcing agencies as well as social activists who have attributed the trend to improper upbringing.

Childlike simplicities are a thing of the past now, with many children here aged below 14 years being now seen openly using knives, daggers, revolvers or even mausers at the drop of a hat, the police said.

Consider the following incidents narrated by the police:

A railway employee Manoj Bodra was murdered in his quarter at the railway colony after he refused to allow four boys to pluck mangoes from a tree inside his garden. Three of the four arrested were aged below 14 and were engaged in cleaning railway bogies after quittng studies midway.

Four juveniles were arrested on the charge of killing a youth identified as Abdul Kalam on Ring Road last December.

A student of the Sambalpur university was gangraped in 2008 and one of the arrested was a minor boy.

In 2008, a school student Puspak Mishra was allegedly gunned down by his cousin brother over a trivial matter on "Diwali". The accused, a minor, was arrested and a revolver seized.

As if these are nothing, the murder of Congress councilor Ratan Biswal in 2001 in Kshetarajpur area and killing of Sattadan Tima, a politician, in Dinapalli in which 10 minors were arrested had the authorities sit up. .

Besides serious crimes, involvement of juveniles in petty offences, including lifting of vehicles, breaking open of motorbike and scooter dickeys and other acts of pilferage, are almost a regular affair in the town.

Sanjib Kumar Satpathy, a police officer, held poverty, lack of education and moral education responsible for violence and indiscipline among children. Desire to earn at an early age also drags them into bad company.

Chapala Mishra, reader in psychology in the Sambalpur University, attributes the juvenile propensity to crime to too much materialistic pursuits among under-age persons in small towns where the middle class restraints of large urban centres are missing.

However, attraction for money is not the sole reason for a criminal mindset among minors. Rather, their upbringing, family background, surroundings and relation with family members play a vital role, she says.

Stressing on moral education and proper advice to the children for building a child's future, Mishra says their sentiments should be respected and given due care.