Several cracker sellers in the city and in the suburbs have been telling people either on the phone or at their shops that they can supply crackers in the next few days.

“Koyek din jetey din. Tarpor hobey. Baji paben (Wait for a few days. You will get the crackers),” a 49-year old man sitting on a charpoy inside the courtyard of his house in Dakshindari near Lake Town said.

A row of candles and earthen lamps are placed on top of a wooden table but residents of Lake Town and adjoining areas gather at his house for crackers, known for their “eardrum-ringing capabilities”.

From chocolate bombs to bigger variants that are tied to tree trunks and lit, everything would be available once police slacken their vigil, the man on the charpoy said as a police jeep drives past.

A fireworks seller in Rajarhat’s Lauhati had a similar response.

“You have to order and pay at least a day in advance. Once we get the things we will call… you have to pick them up,” he said.

The joint secretary of the Burrabazar Fireworks Dealers Association, Shantanu Dutta, said some retailers and small-scale sellers might try to sell fireworks and crackers on the sly.

As fireworks sales are centred around Diwali and Kali Puja and a large segment of sellers had already stocked up, they might try to sell them, Dutta said.

“They had already invested and bought crackers before the court ruling. Many might try to recover their money,” Dutta said. All wholesalers in Burrabazar and other areas have stopped supplying fireworks after the court order, he said.

The wholesalers had ordered the bulk of fireworks from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu after making payments and are in talks with factory owners there to return them.

The prospect of recovering the cost price is bleak, though, as most factory owners have agreed to take back crackers on the condition they will not make full refunds, Dutta said.

On Saturday, senior police officers in Calcutta were asked to scale up intelligence and to try and trace firecrackers that may have already found their way to people ahead of the high court ban.

The thrust was more on the procured firecrackers than preventing their sale. Apart from the conventional hubs of Canning Street, Old China Bazar Street and Burrabazar, the police are now trying to find out from firecracker sellers in other parts about their customers.

“Usually, at the para level, sellers will know who all have bought from them,” an officer overseeing the city’s north division said. “These sellers can tell us about those who have already bought firecrackers. Officers will then visit their homes and seize the firecrackers.”

The sale of firecrackers usually starts about a fortnight ahead of Kali Puja across parts of Calcutta. With just a week to go before the puja and Diwali, the festival of lights, officers are now trying to confiscate the ones that have been sold.

A formal government notification about the ban on sale and use of firecrackers is still to be issued. But the police have zeroed in on some areas in Calcutta for “flush-out” operations. These include parts of Phoolbagan, Beleghata, Maniktala, Camac Street, Theatre Road, Kasba, Anandapur, Behala, Thakurpukur, and areas adjoining South 24-Parganas, including Nadial and Garden Reach.

“The target is highrises. The details of police deployment for Kali Puja and Diwali is being worked out and officers will start visiting housing complexes in a day or two to remind the associations about the ban on the use and sale of firecrackers,” an officer said.