KOLKATA:

: not available;

: not available; PAN card: not available; bank passbook: not available; debit cards: not available; property deeds: not available; tax documents: not available.

Hundreds of homeless residents at Bowbazar’s Durga Pithuri Lane and Shyakra Para Lane are now suffering from an

since most of them had left behind the documents at home during evacuation. With more and more

, they are in no position to retrieve them.

“If anyone asks me to prove my identity, I won’t be able to do so. I don’t have any photo ID cards, forget bank and property documents. I have no clue on how to handle this peculiar identity crisis,” said Prasanta Seal, a resident of 14 Durga Pithuri Lane, whose house was severely damaged.

Seal had to leave his house on a 10-minute notice with his wife, son and their pet dog around 5am on Sunday. “We were told to go to the hotel first and then come back to take the essentials. I returned within half an hour but was not allowed entry. I had left with only Rs 1,700 kept in my wife’s purse. I even forgot to take my debit card. The way my house is crumbling, I wonder, if I can ever get in and retrieve the documents,” said Seal, who has borrowed two shirts and a trousers from a friend.

“We were shifted to a hotel last Thursday when the TBM was passing under our house and later allowed to return on Saturday. My wife had noticed some cracks by Sunday evening but engineers visited our home and assured us that the cracks were minor and that we had nothing to worry. The same night, they asked us to leave. We believed them and left home without carrying any major documents. But that was the last time we were at home,” said Debasis Sen, a resident of 8B Shyakra Para Lane.

“We can see the fate of our neighbours and we don’t want to take chance. If the authorities force us to move out, we will have to go, but at least we need to have the essential documents ready so that we can carry them while leaving,” said Manasi Maiti, a resident of 6, Gour De Lane.