Tapasi Chanda Das, who was shot at on January 26 night while trying to save a colleague at a petrol pump they work in, was released from hospital on Friday but police are yet to arrest the assailants.

“A probe is on but no one has yet been arrested,” said S.K. Chowdhury, the additional superintendent of police (industrial), South 24-Parganas.

Two youths on a motorcycle Tapasi had just refilled at the Patuli pump, on the Bypass, tried to snatch the cash box from Sarita Mahato. Tapasi ran to Sarita’s help when one of the youths shot at her. The bullet was lodged above the 18-year-old’s collar bone, leaving her right hand paralysed.

Chowdhury said sleuths were trying to find out whether the duo had any rivalry with Tapasi or the pump owner, Debasis Sinha Roy. “For now, we have asked the owner to keep the pump closed at night. Two cops stand guard in the evening shift,” said an officer.

Tapasi, despite the paralysis, is confident of getting her life back on track. “I will work again, even if my hand is permanently disabled,” she said, sitting at the one-room apartment in Baishnabghata Patuli that she shares with her parents and younger sister.

“I never thought they would fire at me. I wish I had stopped them and handed them over to police,” she added.

R.N. Bhattacharya, a neurosurgeon at AMRI Hospitals in Dhakuria where the girl was treated, said: “Tapasi has to undergo physiotherapy but we are uncertain whether she will recover fully from the paralysis.”

The pump owner said Tapasi was free to resume work. “We have installed four CCTV cameras and hired guards.”