Taking advantage of Monday?s transport strike, six armed men, on two motorcycles, wrested Rs 50,000 from a petrol pump employee at Dak Bungalow More, in Barasat, in the morning. The gang member with the money, however, failed to flee with the rest. He was caught by bystanders and handed over to police, along with the booty.

The attempted robbery took place while three employees of the petrol pump, in Hridaypur, were on their way to a bank near the Dak Bungalow More in an Ambassador. They were carrying Rs 2.5 lakh in one bag, and Rs 50,000 in another.

According to police, the gang knew that the pump employees carry large amounts of cash to the bank and tried to take advantage of the relatively-empty streets on Monday on account of the strike.

The armed men stopped the car near the bank, and snatched the bag containing Rs 50,000 at gunpoint.?I was getting out of the car without realising that those who had stopped us were robbers. They took away the money holding a revolver to my head,? said Raju Ghosh, who was carrying the bag. However, Shankar Mondol, the robber who took the bag, could not hop on to the two-wheelers as his accomplices sped away.

The bank?s security guard had raised an alarm by then, prompting pedestrians to rush in and catch hold of Mondol, who was then beaten up.

The attempted robbery created some tension in the area. Additional superintendent of police (north) Dilip Banerjee and sub-divisional police officer (Barasat) S.M.H. Mirza visited the spot.

A local resident rued the fact that the area was becoming crime-prone.

?Recently, there was a bank dacoity here. Though today?s incident happened outside the bank, it is quite evident that the area is becoming a hub of crime,? he said.

Superintendent of police, North 24-Parganas, Praveen Kumar said: ?We have arrested one of the robbers and obtained important information about the whereabouts of his gang. The other members will be caught soon. We suspect that the gang was a local one.?