The Santro owner views the broken garage grille. Picture by Amit Datta

The unbridled crime run in Salt Lake claimed its latest casualty: a car, parked in the garage of CD 178, early on Friday.

The tenants of the building woke up on Friday to find that the lock of the iron grille of their garage had been broken, the glass panes of a car window shattered and the stereo set and a console in the vehicle stolen.

The car, a Santro, belonged to A. Agarwal, one of the three tenants of the building.

The police complaint was lodged by another tenant, Rita Bose, a doctor working with the World Health Organisation. ?In the morning, the driver of our car, my husband and Agarwal discovered the theft. I immediately decided that this should be reported to police,? said Bose.

A team from Bidhannagar (North) police station visited the building, a few yards from City Centre. ?We have received a complaint. We are trying to find out whether an individual or a gang was behind the break-in,? said an officer.

Inspector-general (south Bengal) Vageesh Mishra, however, denied that the stereo set had been stolen. ?The robbers had tried to take the stereo, but could not. They must have fled on seeing a patrol van,? he added. He also made it clear that it was not possible to guard each and every house.

Bose said there had been another break-in at the garage a few months ago, when robbers took away the stereo system of their car. ?We then decided to cover the garage with a grille. But even that proved inadequate.?

It is not safe to stay in Salt Lake any more, she lamented. ?We have decided to hire a private agency to guard our building, but that might not be enough.?

The incident has sent ripples of fear across the block. ?We are extremely worried with what happened today. Security has been beefed up, yet there is a robbery in the neighbourhood,? said Bipradas Chatterjee, an executive member of CD Block Association.

Association secretary Arun Mukherjee said the residents would speak to police about this. ?We last met police more than six months ago. Now, officers promise to hold talks every 15 days,? he said.