A sub-inspector of police posted in North Dinajpur's Kaliaganj and some residents of Thanapara, where the police station is located, on Wednesday recalled Tuesday's horror when a mob attacked the police station, damaged police quarters and other homes and mercilessly beat up policemen.

The charred remains of the sub-inspector's residential quarters and nearby vandalised houses bear testimony to the violence Kaliaganj saw on Tuesday over the alleged rape-and-murder of a girl whose body was found last Friday.

Nefazul Haque, the sub-inspector who helplessly watched his quarters go up in flames, said he couldn’t save even any clothes.

“I stay in the quarters (next to the main building of the police station) with my wife. A few days back, my married daughter and her four-year-old son came to visit us. They were all at the quarters while I was working at the police station on Tuesday,” said Haque.

Around 2.30pm that day, he suddenly heard a commotion and saw a group of around 250 people breaking the boundary wall to enter inside.

“They vandalised and torched the bikes and a car parked nearby. Suddenly a group ran towards my quarters. They entered inside and ransacked the furniture. My wife, daughter and grandson fled through a backdoor as the attackers torched the quarter. I ran out but couldn’t save anything as the flames gutted our belongings,” narrated the police officer.

Later, when the flames were doused, Haque saw everything had been gutted in the blaze.

“I don't have any clothes other than the uniform I am wearing. I spent the night in the police barracks while my family stayed at the home of one of my colleagues. The attack has shocked my grandson. He has gone silent,” he added.

Some people in the neighbourhood recalled that as the mob attacked the police station, policemen got outnumbered, ran away or took shelter in the nearby houses.

Sukdev Pal, who stays near the police station, said around 3am on Tuesday, he heard hundreds of people shouting.

“As I went out, I saw 30 to 35 policemen were running towards my house while a mob of around 200 people were chasing them. The policemen went inside the rooms to save themselves. The attackers followed them and started beating them mercilessly. When we tried to dissuade them, they ransacked my house,” said Pal, who fled from his house with his wife and son.

The attackers, he said, also dragged out the policemen, tore their clothes and beat them. “It was a horrific scene. The policemen were rolling on the ground, pleading for mercy while the attackers were hitting them with sticks and throwing bricks at them,” he recalled.

Dipesh Sarkar, Pal’s neighbour and an employee at the district court in Raiganj, was slashed in his back by an attacker as he tried to save a civic volunteer.

“I was standing on the first floor and saw the mob chasing the policemen and some civic volunteers. As they reached my house, the mob caught hold of a civic volunteer. An attacker snatched a gun used to fire teargas shells and started hitting him with it,” said Sarkar.

As he asked the attackers to stop, they threatened him. Sarkar still ran to save the civic volunteer who had collapsed on the ground.

“The mob had sharp weapons and slashed me in the back,” he said.

The residents said attackers had daggers, sickles, bows and arrows, sticks and axes. The attackers were so desperate that they broke the windows of houses where the policemen had taken shelter so as to enter and catch them.

“I was born in this town and I never witnessed such violence. So far, we thought our locality is safe as the police station is there. But no longer. We are, in fact, fearing that we may face similar things in future,” said Anamika Bose, a Thanapara resident.