The 200-metre stretch of Sector V from where a 26-year-old woman was allegedly forced into a car and gang raped by four men late on Sunday has an uneasy mix of party-place atmosphere and pockets of desolation with potential for danger.

The road in front of RDB Boulevard, a commercial complex that also houses a multiplex, has several eateries that remain open all night. But people working late in the BPOs and technology companies that follow overseas work hours say there is hardly any policing in the area after 8pm.

A stream of IT and BPO employees and visitors pass by or stop in the commercial complex every night, but regulars in the area insist that it does not make the neighbourhood in general any more secure than the rest of the township.

The woman targeted on Sunday night lives in a rented house in Baguiati and had been looking for a restaurant she wanted to visit after getting off a taxi around 11.30pm. The man she had asked for directions to the restaurant allegedly offered her a lift in his car till the restaurant and immediately telephoned his driver.

When the white sedan arrived, she was allegedly pushed inside and raped by all four passengers in the moving car.

A police officer quoted the woman as saying that she tried to scream for help, only to find a hand across her mouth. The driver increased the volume of the stereo as the car sped away from the area.

The woman was later dumped near the Baisakhi footbridge in Salt Lake's AG Block, where a taxi driver spotted her in a semi-conscious state around 4am.

Several police officers whom Metro spoke to said they found it very surprising that a woman was being attacked inside a car and yet it moved about in the township without being stopped once at the police check points at the Wipro crossing, near Nicco Park and Technopolis.

The Electronic Complex police station is just about a kilometre from RDB Boulevard and police patrol cars are supposed to be on the move in the lanes of Sector V through the night. But many professionals who work in the offices dotting the area till late in the night said they couldn't recall seeing patrol cars on more than a few occasions.

"I have been working in a call centre in Sector V for two years. Some of these lanes are dimly lit and we feel insecure when we head home in our office pool cars," said a young woman.

According to senior police officers not involved in the probe, a larger deployment of uniformed manpower on the deserted stretches would have deterred criminal activity. "Presence of uniformed policemen and intensified police patrol can change the crime profile of a locality. Criminals hesitate to strike in an area if they know that a police team is nearby," an officer said.

Calcutta police is known to adopt a similar strategy during the festive period. On Christmas and New Year's Eve, the police divide Park Street into multiple zones and scale up deployment on various stretches to keep trouble mongers at bay.

An officer in the state police said what Calcutta police do at festival time isn't feasible for the rest of the force because of manpower constraints.

Officers of the Bidhannagar police commissionerate said there were CCTV cameras at several places in Sector V to supplement electronic surveillance in every office building. "We are examining footage from several such cameras to identity the men involved in Sunday night's incident and also the car's details," an officer said.

Sector V is the IT hub of Bengal and is home to about 600 large and small companies. According to an official of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, the civic body for Sector V, around 250 of these companies are in the IT space.

These include more than 100 call centres and BPOs based in various blocks of Sector V that function through the night. Since many of these call centres function for American and Australian clients, they remain open till morning and have several thousand employees travelling to and from the township from various parts of the city and its fringes.

Restaurants and cafes at Infinity Building stay open all night, attracting visitors from other parts of the city as well.

Rajat Subhra Sen, who does night shifts in a BPO and steps out for a cigarette or a cup of tea in between work, said he had seen youths making obscene remarks at his female colleagues on many occasions. "But there is no police personnel around to approach for help. Seldom would you see any policeman, be it in a car or a two-wheeler, patrolling the area. The only places they can be spotted are near the Wipro crossing and opposite the Electronics Complex police station," Rajat said.

The road near the Baisakhi footbridge where the woman was found has a police kiosk within 100 metres of the spot. The police are supposed to patrol the footbridge, an easy getaway from Salt Lake to Kestopur, through the night. Sources said there was no such vigil on Sunday night.

Two weeks ago, a family out on a midnight drive through New Town had one of their car windows smashed with an unidentified weapon while trying to evade a group of men who had attempted to waylay their vehicle. No police patrol vehicle was in the vicinity when the incident occurred.

Bidhannagar police claimed that routine patrolling was being done at night. "Not only do we have cars, our personnel also patrol the township on motorcycles. Civic police volunteers patrol the lanes and bylanes of Sector V on bicycles too," a senior officer said.

Have you ever felt unsafe in Sector V at night? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com