A retired college teacher has lodged a police complaint stating that jewellery worth more than Rs 3 lakh was missing from his locker in the Dakshineswar branch of a nationalised bank.

Pradip Bhattacharya, who taught physics at Vidyasagar College (evening), said he and wife Mira could not find two boxes containing the jewellery when they opened the locker on July 1.

“We were shocked to find an empty locker except for some property papers,” said Bhattacharya, 63, a resident of Ariadaha. “We alerted the bank manager who searched the locker in front of us but could not find the boxes.”

Bhattacharya said they had seen the boxes when they last opened the locker in November, before leaving for Chennai for treatment.

Bank officials said they could hardly be blamed. “We never enter the locker chamber. Our duty ends with verifying the identity of the person who has come to open the locker and opening the door of the chamber. We don’t have the keys to the lockers,” said a bank official.

The official added that Bhattacharya’s locker had a hatch where the customer could put a lock, the keys to which he was not supposed to hand over to the bank. The retired teacher admitted he had put his own lock on the locker which was not broken when he had come on July 1. A police officer said: “We will speak to bank officials on Monday. The couple, too, will be questioned.”