Bhagabanpur (East Midnapore), June 24: Joydeb Singh was sitting on a charpoy in his mud house late on Sunday night when he heard the splash of oars in the floodwaters.

Wading through knee-deep water, Joydeb reached the door and opened it a crack. A country boat with half a dozen men was approaching.

It was not a relief team.

“As the boat neared my house, I found two of them were armed with double-barrelled guns. The others had sticks. I lit a kerosene lamp and asked ‘who are you’,” said Joydeb, sitting at a relief camp

“They jumped into the waist-deep water and waded into my house.” They were bandits, who beat up Joydeb, 45, and plundered his house in the light of torches.

“They took the power tiller and about 500kg of rice I had stacked on my bed. They also took the charpoy and a chair,” said the farmer who had left his family behind at the camp to guard his home at Sarbeswarpur in East Midnapore’s Bhagabanpur block I.

He went back after the heist on Sunday. His wife Dipali, 38, and son Arup are in the camp since Saturday.

Several dacoit gangs have been allegedly roaming the flood-ravaged villages in Bhagabanpur I and Chandipur blocks.

Many villagers have returned home in the past two days, not because floodwaters have receded but as they fear losing the little that remains at home.

Bapi Bera of Tentulberia is living on the concrete roof of a neighbour’s single-storey house with his mother, wife, son and two daughters.

“My father stayed back at home, hoping that his presence would scare away the robbers,” said Bapi, 32.

His father Santosh, 60, saw on Sunday night a big country boat moving around in the village, picking out deserted houses and looting them.

“They thought our house was deserted, too. After taking away some paddy bags from the ground floor, they tried to break the door to the first floor open, but I raised the alarm and continued to scream until they left,” said Santosh.

His shouts for help would not have drawn many, though, in the ghost land, minus people and power.

A radio and paddy were stolen from Purnendu Sardar’s house in Jagamohanpur. “We heard about the theft from neighbours,” said Purnendu, 27, who has been living at a camp with father Jagadish, 65, and mother Annapurna, 55.

Police said it was impossible to maintain vigil in the flood-hit villages. None of the marooned villagers has been able to lodge a complaint with the police either.

“Scattered incidents of looting have taken place. But most policemen have been pressed into relief and rescue operations and they are working 15 to 20 hours a day,” said district police chief S.S. Panda. Patrolling by boat will be introduced if the “problem escalates”, he added.