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Calcutta, Feb. 11: Two armed men barged into a house in a crowded locality in Kasba last evening, attacked a 50-year-old woman with a dagger and robbed her of her jewellery pointing a gun at her six-month-old grandson.
Police suspect the involvement of a woman who baby-sits the elderly widow’s grandson.
Tapasi Banerjee’s daughter Indrani Adhikari and grandson had been staying with her at her home near Kasba Rathtala for the past few days. The ground floor of the house, a few meters off BB Chatterjee Road, is at least 50 years old and rented to a homeopath.
“Indrani had gone to a neighbour’s house around 8.10pm leaving the main door open as she planned to return within a couple of minutes,” a police officer said.
The police said two men had knocked on the main door of Tapasi’s first-floor apartment. The baby’s ayah, Shukla Mondal, had opened the door. “The duo, one armed with a gun and the other with a chopper, entered the living room. The man with the gun pointed it at the baby and threatened to pull the trigger if Shukla raised the alarm. The other robber attacked Tapasi with the chopper. She was hit in her leg when she tried to resist,” the officer said.
“The robber pinned her down on the bed, tied her hands and gagged her. Then she was forced to take off her earrings and a gold bangle. The duo also took away some silver ornaments from the cupboard before leaving,” he added.
Shukla was detained by the police and questioned for several hours. “It appears that the attackers knew exactly when Indrani would leave the house, even if for a few minutes. This would not have been possible unless they had been tipped off by an insider,” the officer said.
The police are checking Shukla’s cellphone records to see if she had called anyone just before the attack.
Some neighbours quoted Tapasi as telling them that the robbers had demanded “money she had got from selling the house”. Both the police and the neighbours, however, said they did not know if Tapasi had struck any deal with a real estate agent. She refused to speak to the media.
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