Bike-borne men snatched a gold chain from the neck of a 57-year-old woman who was going to a relative’s house a few hundred metres from her Dhakuria home on Saturday afternoon.
Piyali De Ray, a resident of 76/7 Selimpur Road, was walking down Dhakuria Jheel Road to her relative’s place not far from her home when three men riding a motorcycle snatched her gold chain.
“There was no one on the road at that time. It was around 4.45pm on Saturday. Suddenly, I saw a bike slow down by my side. There were three men. One of them told me to look at a flat on my right side. I did that impulsively and the next moment I felt a jerk on my neck,” Piyali told The Telegraph on Sunday.
It took her a moment to realise her gold chain had been yanked off. The chain was torn into two pieces and one piece still remained on her neck.
“The next moment I saw one of the three men approach me with his fingers pointing towards me with an intimidating gaze. For a second I froze and thought he was going to hurt me,” she said.
The man grabbed the remaining portion of the chain from her neck and jumped back onto the motorcycle.
The men on their two-wheeler sped away from the spot.
The incident has left the family traumatised. They are even considering shifting to Bangalore.
“We have no faith in the administration. We have informed the police. No one has been arrested till now,” said Piyali’s husband Sankha De Ray.
Sankha said his family had stayed in the residential neighbourhood for generations and had never faced anything like this.
“My wife got very very scared and thought the man was going to harm her. We are seriously thinking of leaving this city and settling in Bangalore where my son stays,” Sankha said.
He runs a business in Dhakuria. His family had first lodged a complaint by sending an email to the Kolkata Police headquarters. Later on Sunday, Sankha reported the matter to the local Garfa police station.
The police said they had obtained the footage of the three men fleeing on a motorcycle.
“We are trying to identify the men using the footage,” said an officer of Garfa police station.
No one had been arrested till late on Sunday.
Like the De Rays, several others feel vulnerable in a city where a large number of elderly citizens live alone with their children living outside Bengal.
Recently, an elderly woman staying alone in her Central Avenue home was robbed by unidentified men.