Goons with guns visit home, loot camera, chain

KOLKATA: Four masked men held a trader at gunpoint and robbed his family in

Bhowanipore

in the early hours of Thursday. Mohan Agarwal, the family head who owns

Sree Ram Studio

at Elgin Road, alleged that the gang fled with a

Nikon

D300S (costing Rs 86,500), its lens, a gold chain and a purse before police could respond to a distress call and rush to the spot.

The accused reportedly broke open two locks — the main gate and the collapsible gate — and reached the third floor (top floor) where the Agarwals reside. “They rang the doorbell around 3.20am. My husband opened the door, thinking there was an emergency in one of the flats. Four men muscled into the room as soon as the door was opened. One of them was holding a gun,” shuddered Lalita Agarwal, Mohan’s wife who had dialysis on Wednesday.

One of the accused then reportedly entered Lalita’s room and switched on the light. “I thought it was my husband and even rebuked him for switching the light on. The light was switched off immediately. However, I kept hearing sounds of locks being opened. When I came out to check, I found three men standing there. One of them had a gun trained on my husband’s head. I was shoved back into the room when I tried to protest,” recalled Lalita.

“I locked the room and called up police. By then, they had entered my sister-in-law’s room and snatched a gold chain from her neck. By the time the cops came, the accused had picked up a purse and a camera and fled,” she said.

Police said there was no

CCTV

footage available in the vicinity. The detective department is helping the local police in the probe. “Several flats here have installed CCTVs. It would have been better if we could have collected CCTV footages from here,” said Ward 70 councillor Ashim Kumar Bose.