Two theft attempts on the same night in Karunamoyee’s E Block has left residents jittery. The incidents happened on the night of August 31.

Around midnight on Monday, corporate trainer Neena A. Ghosh Roy heard a noise and got up to investigate. Ghosh stays in a flat where construction of new rooms is nearing completion. The family has put internal construction on hold due to the pandemic and no lights have been installed in the newly-constructed rooms.

“Although it was dark, I could see that one of the windows of the room facing the elevator shaft was open and a man was peering inside. I immediately started shouting and he disappeared,” said Ghosh.

Alerted by her screams, Ghosh’s husband called the police. When the cops arrived, they found a couple of slippers near the landing of the elevator shaft. “In all likelihood the man had climbed up the bamboo scaffolding put in place to facilitate the construction work,” said an officer of the Bidhannagar East police station.

Sometime later on the same night, in another E Block building, Sanghamitra Mukherjee, 69, heard a rustling sound coming from outside her bedroom.

“As soon as I heard the sound, I woke up and walked out. The construction of a new wing along with an elevator is on at our building and I saw that somebody was pulling out the sheets of plastic sheets covering the scaffolding. I raised an alarm but the person ran away,” said Mukherjee, a former principal of Lady Brabourne College.

She said that they were living in fear as her family resides in a ground floor flat and the area around their building has plunged into darkness since cyclone Amphan damaged the streetlights.

The police are probing both cases but have not been able to ascertain if it was the same person behind both.

Several residents said that police patrolling inside the complex was extremely lax. “There is a police barrack on top of the Karunamoyee Municipal Market but the cops only park their vehicles and reside there. There is no patrolling at all,” said a resident who did not wish to be named.

Mukherjee, on the other hand, pointed out that the large housing complex is devoid of security guards. “Most buildings here are getting new wings built but there are no security guards. There are absolutely no checks in place,” said Mukherjee.

Another resident said they had to let go of guards as very few residents had agreed to pay for their services. “In the absence of private security guards, groups of young men often park their cars and two-wheelers inside the complex to drink and smoke,” he said. “We cannot protest as we are aged and we don't want to risk any trouble.”

An officer of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate promised to increase patrolling inside the complex.