Robbers turn Good Samaritans - Treatment after stabs & blows

A bandaged Sanjit Singh in hospital

ANSHUMAN PHADIKAR,TT, Tamluk, Sept. 25: Two stabs with a sickle and three blows later, the gang of six realised they had raided the wrong house.

The six robbers, who had broken into a mason's house in Tamluk last night, ended up treating the injuries they had inflicted and bandaging him after they learnt they had wrong information that he had taken a loan of Rs 6 lakh from the bank and stocked the money at home.

Sanjit Singh, whose single-storey house the robbers had entered around 1am, said he was fortunate the gang did not kill him or his family despite the mask of two of the members coming off in the melee.

The mason even thanked them for cleaning up his wounds and bandaging him.

"Around 1am, the gang broke the iron grille and the main door and barged into my house. They first tied up my two sons and wife and then caught me by the shirt's collar. They repeatedly asked me about Rs 6 lakh they thought I had borrowed from the bank. When I told them I had never seen so much money at a time, one of them hit me with a sickle in the head. He stabbed me in the chest too," Sanjit said.

The robbers also punched him in the face several times.

Sanjit's wife Anjana said she pleaded with the robbers that her husband did take a loan from the bank, but the amount was not Rs 6 lakh but Rs 60,000.

" I told them that my husband had taken a loan of Rs 60,000 to start a vegetable business. But the bank had given us only Rs 10,000 as the first instalment, of which we had spent Rs 2,000. We had Rs 8,000 at home and told them to take it away. We even offered to show them the bank documents. It was then that they realised they had wrong information," Anjana said.

As the gang beat up Sanjit and his teenaged sons, the mask of two of the robbers came off.

While the two argued it would be prudent to kill the family as they had seen their faces, the others objected.

"They started arguing among themselves whether we should be killed or not. Four of the robbers tried to convince the others that if they were caught for murder, they were likely to be hanged, whereas the punishment for robbery was less harsh," said Sanjit's elder son Saurav, a college student.

Seeing Sanjit bleed profusely from his stab wounds, one of the robbers asked the mason if he had an antiseptic liquid or ointment at home. "When I said no, two of the gang members went out of the house and returned with some aloe vera leaves. They cleaned my wounds with water and then applied the juice from the leaves," Sanjit said.

The gang eventually left with Rs 8,000 the family had at home and some jewellery, but not before bandaging Sanjit's head with a piece of cloth.

Tarun Purakait, who teaches botany at Khamarchak High School in Tamluk, said: "Aloe vera heals cuts and stops bleeding. It is also known for its antiseptic properties."

A doctor treating Sanjit said: "By the time he was brought to the hospital, the bleeding had stopped. The medicinal plants seem to have worked. He was given eight stitches and released."