Bharat Prasad in his ransacked flat on Tuesday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Two gangs cleaned out goods and jewellery worth nearly Rs 3 lakh from a doctor’s Fern Road flat and a Habra house on Monday and Tuesday.

Urologist Bharat Prasad was at work at Fortis Kidney Institute when burglars broke into his empty ground-floor flat on Monday afternoon. They took away a laptop, a digital camera and other gadgets.

The 37-year-old shifted from Kishanganj in Bihar to the city three months ago. One of the reasons he chose to stay in the south Calcutta locality is that he thought it to be “safe”.

“The robbers mostly stole electronics goods. Along with my laptop, they took my pen drive and 500GB external hard disk, in which I had kept my thesis and several ebooks. I did not have an inkling that something like this could happen so I didn’t even bother to keep my almirah locked,” said Prasad.

Apart from gadgets, the robbers took away Rs 12,000, a gold ring, a wristwatch, a pair of sneakers, sunglasses and clothes. They left behind the 32-inch LCD television, microwave oven and refrigerator.

Police said local criminals were probably behind the incident. “We are interrogating some of the criminals from the area,” said joint commissioner (crime) Damayanti Sen.

Prasad left for the hospital around 9am on Monday, as he usually does. His landlady’s daughter Arpita Ghosh called him around 7.30pm to ask if he was in the flat since the front door was ajar and the lights were on.

“I told her that I was at the hospital and asked her to lock the door from outside. I returned to the flat around 8.30pm and saw that the whole flat had been turned upside down. They had moved the refrigerator but did not take it,” said Prasad.

According to him, the burglars knew his schedule well. “They entered with enough time in hand to sift through things and take everything with good resale value that could be carried away,” added Prasad.

In the other incident, a gang of 10 to 12 dacoits raided a two-storeyed house at Habra, near Barasat, around 3am on Tuesday and looted Rs 15,000 and 10 bharis of gold (116.64g, worth nearly Rs 2 lakh).

The owner of the house, Barun Chowdhury, is an officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau posted in Guwahati.

Police said the robbers managed to scale a wall to the first floor where Chowdhury, his wife Kajal and their 13-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son were sleeping and forced them at gunpoint to hand over the keys to the almirah.

The men fled after locking the family in a room.