Jewellery was snatched from two women in Jadavpur and Haridevpur since Wednesday evening.

Kalpana Acharya, 67, was returning home from the grocer’s when a youth snatched her gold chain and pushed her to the ground in a lane near Ram Thakur Ashram.

Seema Ghosh, in her 40s, was out on her daily morning walk when an earring was snatched off her right ear on Kailash Ghosh Street in Haridevpur around 6am on Thursday. The snatcher came on a cycle and sped off before Seema could shout for help.

Kalpana managed to cling on to her locket even as the chain, weighing around 10g, was pulled off. She had scratch marks on her neck and also injured her knees as she fell with her face to the ground.

“Two youths on a motorcycle came from the opposite direction and stopped near my mother-in-law. One of them was wearing a helmet, he got off and pushed my mother-in-law before snatching her chain,” said Priyanka Acharya, Kalpana’s daughter-in-law. “She fell down on the road.” The other youth waited with the two-wheeler engine running and drove away as soon as his partner returned.

Priyanka said her mother-law had kept the chain covered with her sari and it was not visible to passersby “It seems the snatchers knew that she generally wore a gold chain,” she said.

Robbers arrested

Eight persons were arrested from Bhangar in South 24-Parganas on Wednesday night on the charge of attempting a dacoity.

Local residents alerted police after they saw a group of men moving about suspiciously in Ghatakpukur Bazar. Three firearms, 10 rounds of cartridges and explosives were seized from them.

According to officers of Bhangar police station, the group, led by Zulfiqar Mollah, 30, has confessed to have planned a dacoity in Midnapore.