Haldia, Feb. 10: A schoolteacher in Haldia directed robbers to his neighbour’s house early this morning after his daughter was held at gunpoint and he was pushed around and abused for not having more than Rs 19,000 at home.

The man next door, a retired teacher of the same school, woke up before the goons could break in. He huddled his family into a room and raised the alarm, alerting other neighbours.

The teacher whose house the robbers went first said he was helpless. “They were very angry after they searched the entire house and found only Rs 19,000 and my wife and daughters’ everyday ornaments,” said Gourpada Giri, 55.

“They hurled abuses at us and asked why we had so little money. They wanted to know which house could have a bigger amount. In a rush, I gave them my neighbour’s name and told them he was a retired teacher.”

Before leaving, the robbers apparently told Giri they would return for more addresses. So shaken was the family that they did not raise the alarm even after the goons had left for the other house.

The Giris had virtually opened their door to the goons. “I heard a shuffling noise in the verandah and thought my younger daughter Madhumita needed something. So I called out her name. Then a man started calling my daughter from the verandah. Confused, she opened the door and stepped out and the goons held the revolver to her head,” said the math teacher of Chakdipa High School in the town.

Police said a group of about 20 had surrounded Giri’s two-storey house around 1am today. They broke open a lock and climbed onto the ground-floor verandah.

The floor has two bedrooms. Giri was in one with his wife. Madhumita was in the other. Her sister Sushmita, a high school teacher herself, was on the first floor.

About a dozen men had entered the house while the others stood outside. With a gun pointed at his daughter, Giri handed over the almirah keys to the gang. “They took the ornaments my wife and my daughters were wearing, bundled us into a first-floor room and searched the almirahs but found little,” Giri said.

Retired teacher Tushar Samanta’s mother-in-law, who sleeps in a ground-floor room, heard a noise and asked who was outside. The robbers ordered her to open the door. But she tiptoed to the first floor and called Tushar.

“I asked my wife and mother-in-law to lock themselves in a room and started screaming for help from a window. They fired a few shots and that made my task easier,” Tushar said. The robbers fled as people rushed out.

The subdivisional police officer said they were trying to identify the gang.

Tushar does not bear a grudge about his neighbour: “He was under tremendous pressure as the dacoits held his daughter at gunpoint. He must have panicked and taken my name. He is a good friend of mine,” the good neighbour said.