A homemaker was attacked with a knife when she tried to resist an armed robbery at her home in Burtolla in north Calcutta on Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Diamond-encrusted jewellery and Rs 80,000 were robbed when Nivedita Adak, the homemaker, was home with her mother-in-law and three-year-old child.

The police said Nivedita had left her son sleeping on the bed of her first-floor bedroom and gone to the washroom for a few minutes when the robbers were suspected to have entered the two-storey house in Chidam Mudi Lane around 4pm.

“When the woman came out of the washroom, she saw her child sleeping as she had left him but the door of the cupboard was ajar and the locker was empty,” said an officer.

She heard some unusual sound from an adjoining room and saw at least two men ransacking the cupboards. A lot of stolen articles was heaped on the bed, the woman has purportedly told the police.

“As she started shouting ‘chor chor’, the robbers tried to gag her. One of them was holding a knife. When she tried to resist, she was attacked with the knife that hit one of her arms,” an officer said. No one else in the house was injured.

The robbers fled the house with cash and valuables. The family then alerted their neighbours.

The woman’s husband, Prodosh Karmakar, a doctor, refused to share any details about the robbery citing the police investigation. “I will not comment on the matter till the investigation is over,” Karmakar said.

A senior officer at Lalbazar said they were in the process of analysing footage of CCTV cameras installed in the neighbourhood to identify the accused. “We are banking on electronic as well as human intelligence to identify and track down the accused,” said an officer

No one was arrested till Wednesday night.

“The incident shows how desperate criminals have become. Lockdown had left many jobless. I will not be shocked if someone in financial distress had carried out the daring robbery,” said a resident of the neighbourhood.