Dacoity at Sonarpur jewellery shop leaves 1 dead, 3 injured

One killed and three, including a woman, were critically injured when dacoits hurled bombs and opened fire after looting a jewellery shop near Sonarpur railway station in South 24 Parganas on Sunday evening.

Deepak Debnath, the owner of the jewellery shop, was declared brought dead when taken to a private hospital off EM Bypass while the injured persons — Subrata Mondal and Dipankar Roy Chowdhury — were admitted to MR Bangur Hospital with bullet injuries.

It was around 7 pm when the area adjacent to Sonarpur station was packed with people busy marketing on a Sunday ahead of the Bengali New Year.

All of a sudden, a few miscreants started hurling bombs. Initially, people couldn't understand anything and started searching for a safe shelter as the miscreants were firing bullets too.

Some of the traders had saw seven persons, with their faces covered with cloths, carrying firearms and sickles hurling bombs soon after coming out of the jewellery shop. They ran towards the railway station. Before anyone could show courage to chase them, the accused managed to flee along the railway tracks.

After a few minutes, some of the local shopkeepers found the owner of the shop crying for help with severe injuries on his head, shoulders and hands. Three others including a woman were also crying for help.

The woman, who seems to be an employee of the shop, received bullet injuries. Subrata and Dipankar were passers-by and they received bullet injuries when the miscreants were firing indiscriminately while fleeing.

Other workers of the jewellery shop told the police that the miscreants had entered the shop posing as customers. They pulled down the shutters of the shop after entering and took all jewellery displayed in showcases. They hit on the head of the owner of the shop with a sickle as he refused to give them the keys of the locker. He fell unconscious at the spot.

Apprehending that they may get caught, the miscreants hurled bombs and started firing.

Senior police officers went to the spot and started collecting footages of CCTVs installed in the shop. A senior police officer said that they are going through the CCTV footages to identify the accused. Portrait parleys of the accused will be made if the CCTV footages are found hazy.