Books worth ₹15,000 were discovered to be stolen from two book stalls at the eleventh edition of the ongoing Alipurduar District Book Fair on Thursday.

Following the theft, publishing houses sought the deployment of more police personnel at the Brigade Parade Ground where the fair started on December 9.

The fair, slated to end on December 15, starts at 11.30am and closes at 9pm every day. On Thursday, as the stalls opened in the morning, representatives of two publishing houses, one based in Calcutta and another in Alipurduar, found that criminals had broken into their stalls and taken away books.

“Some books were stolen and the stalls were damaged. We have set up stalls at many book fairs across the state but have never faced such an incident before this. We hope the fair organisers and the administration look into it," said Swapan Gayen, a representative of the Calcutta-based publishing house.

The matter has been reported to the district library officer, he said.

Representatives of both stalls said books on eminent Bengali film directors like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, books on Kurukh language, poetry and some books on competitive exams and travel were missing from the stalls.

Bhaskar Majumdar, the joint secretary of the committee that organises the fair, termed the incident as unfortunate.

“We have contacted the district police. From Thursday night, more police personnel will be deployed on the book fair grounds to prevent such thefts. We hope there are no more such incidents,” he said.