A robber held a gun to the head of a Cafe Coffee Day employee at an outlet in AD Block of Salt Lake on Monday morning while three accomplices tied him up with an apron before cleaning out the cash till that contained Rs 15,000.

Barista and waiter Suvankar Ghosh was apparently the only person inside the 40-seater cafe around 10.20am when the gang walked in.

According to Suvankar’s statement to the police, the men claimed to be “workers” sent by a person named Babu to assist him. “I told them I didn’t know anyone by that name, at which one of the men whipped out a gun and held it to my head,” he recounted.

Amit Javalgi, the deputy commissioner (headquarters) of Bidhannagar City Police, said CCTV footage from at least four houses near the cafe did not contain any image of the gang. “There was a power outage at the exact moment the gang entered the café, which is why the cameras in front of the neighbouring houses did not capture their arrival. We have asked for footage from the camera installed inside the Cafe Coffee Day outlet.”

Suvankar told the police that he froze when one of the men took out a gun. The other three took off his apron and used it to tie his hands. The men then pushed him towards the cash till and asked how to unlock it.

“As soon as the till opened, the men grabbed the Rs 15,000 that was inside it and made a quick exit,” the police quoted him as saying.

According to Suvankar, it took him at least 15 minutes to free his hands. Nobody entered the cafe during that period, he said.

The police arrived after Suvankar spoke to the area manager of Cafe Coffee Day and dialled 100 to report the robbery.

In the absence of CCTV footage, investigators are looking for witnesses to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the robbery, deputy commissioner Javalgi said.

The general manager (east) of Cafe Coffee Day, Praveen Kumar Sinha, said this was the first time that robbers had targeted any of the 97 outlets spread across the city. “We have lodged an incident report and are cooperating with the cops,” he said.

Several residents of AD Block said the daylight robbery at the cafe was possibly an incident waiting to happen. “Policing is lax in our block despite its proximity to the Baisakhi foot overbridge, which criminals have used in the past to quickly flee towards VIP Road after committing a crime here,” said Surabhi Agarwal, whose house is a short walk from the Cafe Coffee Day outlet.

A few months ago, an elderly woman living in the adjoining AC Block had her ornaments stolen by two men who had come masquerading as jewellery cleaners.

In December last year, a 57-year-old retired engineer was murdered in his house.