A trader walking home with four others after closing his store on Baghajatin Station Road early on Thursday was allegedly robbed of around Rs 4 lakh at gunpoint by two men, who were apparently waiting at the corner of a bylane.
Gopal Kundu, 51, the trader, told the police that the robbers fled on a motorcycle with the money.
The robbery was reported at Patuli police station later on Thursday.
The police said Kundu, 51, his brother and their three employees had shuttered the grocery on Baghajatin Station Road and were walking home when the robbers struck around 12.40am at the intersection with Biplabi Ullaskar Dutta Road off Baghajatin Place.
“According to the statement of the complainant, they were carrying Rs 3.8 lakh in two bags. Kundu and the others live in the same neighbourhood and hence were walking home together. The complainant said two men were standing at the corner of a bylane near the Baghajatin auto stand, close to the railway station. One of them suddenly took out a gun and threatened to shoot the owner,” a senior officer at the Kolkata police headquarters in Lalbazar said on Thursday evening.
After firing a bullet in the air, the man aimed the gun at Kundu, the police said. The trader, fearing for his life, handed the bags to the robbers.
Kundu had withdrawn Rs 2 lakh from the bank for making a payment and the remaining Rs 1.8 lakh was from the day’s earnings from the store, Kundu told the police.
“The two men were wearing helmets. So the complainant and his companions could not see their faces,” an officer at Patuli police station said.
“It appears the robbers knew that Kundu carrying a good amount of cash.”
Baghajatin Station Road is dotted with shops and residential buildings and usually remains congested with cars, autorickshaws,cycles and rickshaws till late at night.
However, the stretch where the alleged robbery was committed was deserted around the time Kundu and others were walking home, the police said.
A police officer said they were in the process of collecting CCTV footage from the stretch, which they hope will help them identify the motorcycle on which the alleged robbers fled.
The police are questioning the employees of the store.
No one was detained or arrested till Thursday evening.