An armed gang of four looted two apartments in a building in Baguiati after breaking open the doors and holding a neighbour at gun-point early on Monday. Jewellery and cash worth more than Rs 2 lakh were looted.

The residents of the building chased the dacoits, but could not catch hold of them. Police, too, failed to track down the criminals.

Praveen Kumar, superintendent of North 24-Parganas police, said the owners of both apartments were out of town.

Around 2 am, the gang entered the multistoreyed building, in Narayantala, unnoticed. “They first entered the flat of Biswanath Chatterjee, who trades in electronic goods, after breaking open the door. Two almirahs were cleaned out,” said Kumar.

The next target was the apartment of Sushanta Hazra, an electrical engineer. “But while the criminals were trying to break open the door, the sound woke up Hazra’s next-door neighbour,” the police superintendent added.

He immediately came out, only to find four men standing in front of Hazra’s door, two of them brandishing firearms.

The duo aimed the guns at him, while the others barged into the flat. They came out in 10 minutes with two gunny bags stuffed with valuables.

The neighbour raised an alarm as soon as the dacoits left the building. “The residents came out but the dacoits proved too fast for them. We are not sure whether the gang came in a vehicle,” said an officer of Baguiati outpost, which functions under Teghoria police station.

Kumar suspects the gang was from the neighbourhood. “We are interrogating the domestic helps of both families.”