Kalighat: A resident of chief minister Mamata Banerjee's neighbourhood was allegedly manhandled and threatened on Sunday night because he chose to report two explosions near his home to police instead of the local toughs.

"Police- er kachhe gechhis keno (Why did you go to police)?" a man said within earshot of a police patrol that had responded to Kaushik Das's call.

The cops allegedly did nothing as the man continued: " Aage amader janao uchhit chhilo (You should have informed us first)."

A brief exchange with the man, identified as Jagannath, culminated in Das being allegedly pushed and threatened with dire consequences for informing the cops about the explosions.

Das, a resident of Ishwar Ganguly Street, was spared only after he clarified that he had not complained to the police about anyone in particular. The 42-year-old said he had only reported two suspected bombs exploding barely 100 metres from his ground-floor residence and that he was worried for his wife Mayurakshi and their one-and-a-half-year-old son Rudresh.

"What was my fault? In such a situation, one should always inform the police and seek their help. But he wouldn't listen and kept abusing me and my mother," Das told Metro on Monday. "When I tried reasoning with him, he held me by my vest and pushed me. Before leaving, he warned me that the outcome of this incident wouldn't be a good one. I know him - he is Jagannath."

Das, a trader, had woken up with a start around midnight on Sunday when an explosion shattered the silence of an otherwise quiet locality about 500 metres from the Kalighat temple. Little Rudresh woke up too and wouldn't stop crying.

Stepping out, Das saw fumes rising from the ground. He called Kalighat police station and an officer noted down the details and redirected a night patrol to the spot. The police team assured him that he was safe.

Within an hour, the second explosion occurred. This was around 1.10 am. The second one, several other residents said, was louder than the first.

"I almost fell off my bed," recalled Krishna Ganguly, 71. "I thought the first floor of our house had collapsed. It was so loud. My brother cam running down the stairs from the first floor."

Das called the police station again and a motorbike patrol arrived within minutes. This was when Jagannath allegedly walked up to him and started threatening him.

Jagannath is an aide of Kumar Saha, a local Trinamul leader with an alleged criminal past. Das called Saha, who later sent another aide to apologise to him. "Meet me tomorrow evening. It's very late at night. Let me sleep now," Saha told Das over the phone.

Several calls by Metro to Saha on Monday went unanswered.

The police said they had started a case of "criminal intimidation" and "voluntarily causing hurt" based on the complaint by Das. But nobody had been arrested till late in the night.

Das has sent a copy of his complaint to the chief minister's office.