4 dead, 12 injured in fatal road accident on Bongaon-Bagda Road

Kolkata: Four persons were killed and twelve others injured, some of them critically, in a fatal road accident involving three vehicles on Bongaon-Bagda Road of North 24 Parganas on Tuesday morning.

Police said that an auto-rickshaw was carrying passengers to Bongaon from Bagda along Bongaon-Bagda Road early Tuesday morning. A Maruti van which was also carrying some passengers which was trying to overtake the auto-rickshaw when it lost control and collided head-on with a pick up van coming from the opposite direction. After hitting the pickup van, the Maruti van fell on a roadside ditch. The auto-rickshaw which was coming from behind applied a sudden brake and overturned. As the auto-rickshaw was running at a higher speed, it also fell in the roadside ditch.

Police said that the incident took place near Chandbazar Panchmail area of Bongaon. Local people heard a loud thud and reached to the spot to find the Maruti van and the auto-rickshaw lying in the ditch with the passengers trapped inside the vehicle. The matter was informed to the local police station. The local residents rushed the injured passengers to Bongaon hospital where four passengers were declared brought dead while 12 are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Two bodies have been identified by the police so far. They are Gouranga Saha and Krishnapada Biswas. Both were residents of Bagda area. Among the injured passengers three have been identified. They are Manoranjan Biswas, Gobinda Biswas and Haripada Biswas. According to the doctors, the health condition of some of the passengers is serious. According to the preliminary investigation, police suspect that both the auto-rickshaw and the Maruti van were running at a high speed that led to the accident.

In another accident, 20 persons were injured when the bus they were travelling in lost control and rammed into a truck which was parked by the side of National Highway 2. The incident took place near Kanksa in Durgapur. Five persons sustained severe injuries in the accident. Police have seized both the vehicles. A probe has been initiated.