A group of New Town residents and police helped a college student return home to East Burdwan on Wednesday night after she sought their help because she was feeling lonely and depressed.

The student was all by herself in her rented flat at the Anahita Housing Complex in New Town’s Action Area II after her roommates left for their homes just before the lockdown was announced, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.

The student sought help from the residents’ association, saying she was scared to stay alone, the officer said.

“We organised a counselling session for her… a former college teacher who lives in our complex spoke to her. Several residents gave her cakes and savouries to cheer her up,” Anirban Chowdhury, the association secretary, said.

The association called up the inspector-in-charge of Eco Park police station, Sushim Ganguly, after the student asked the association to help her reach home.

She told Ganguly she was worried for her ailing grandmother and mother and that she felt depressed. “She kept crying… she is barely out of her teens… . she was surviving on instant noodles and meals provided by neighbours…. I then called up an officer of a police station in East Burdwan,” Ganguly said.

The police station and the Bidhannagar commissionerate issued her a travel pass.

The girl’s mother reached New Town in a car with a driver to pick her up, the police said.

“I have received calls from students stuck in various states. Almost all of them said they were depressed as they could not go home,” Sharmila Sarkar, associate professor, psychiatry, Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, said.

The student and her mother have promised to treat the residents and cops to sitabhog and mihidana from East Burdwan once the lockdown is lifted.