From top: Krishna Ganguly on Saturday morning; he Gangulys’ AJ block house. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, May 8: Burglars broke into a house in Salt Lake’s AJ block last evening, switched the lights off, hit a 65-year-old woman on the head while she was wondering if it was a power cut and made off with jewellery and some cash.

Krishna Ganguly, wife of veteran journalist Tarun Ganguly, was alone in the single-storey house at AJ 75, watching television in the living room, when the lights went off around 7.30pm.

“Initially, I thought the power had gone, but I looked up and saw that the fan was still on and the TV was playing,” a shaken Ganguly said today with a bandage around her head.

“Just as I was turning to see what had happened, I was hit behind my head. I immediately put my hands to my head and another blow landed, this time on my hands.”

Ganguly believes that while she was stunned, the burg- lars moved swiftly and took the jewellery, worth about Rs 40,000, from a cupboard, Rs 700 from her purse and made off.

When finally a profusely bleeding Ganguly managed to get up and shuffle her way to the switchboard, she found the light switched off.

The key to the cupboard was under her mattress and so, obviously, the burglars had inside information.

“I did not even see who was there or even how many people had entered the house,” said Ganguly. “I was feeling a little scared. I washed my wounds, applied Betadine on them and called my husband.”

When her husband arrived, he checked the doors and found all of them locked except the one under the stairs at the side of the house. “The collapsible gate’s lock was hanging open. It was not broken. I believe that is where they had entered from,” said Tarun.

According to Tarun, his wife could see nothing because she had her back to the switchboard and the passage to the room that had the cupboard. The elderly couple found the cupboard key hanging from it.

A maid, who was away at the time of the incident, stays with them. Their daughter, Nandini Sanyal, lives in Delhi.

The Gangulys have lodged a complaint with the Bidhannagar east police station.

“I have been living here for 23 years and it has never happened before. This place has become unsafe these days. There isn’t much surveillance here,” said Tarun.

This is the second heist in AJ in two months. In March, an elderly couple were robbed of Rs 2 lakh and gold at AJ 30.