Two killed including minor in separate road accidents

Kolkata: A 45-year-old man died after being hit by a speeding bus at Taratala on Thursday afternoon while in a separate accident a 6-year-old girl was crushed to death by a truck in Jalpaiguri early on the day.

In both the cases, police have seized the vehicles. They have arrested the bus driver in connection with the accident while in the other case the truck driver has been absconding since the accident took place in Jalpaiguri.

According to police, the victim, Vinay Ram (45), was standing in front of a lamp post situated on the pavement near Taratala Bridge when the accident happened. Police suspect that the lamp post fell on the victim after it was hit by the bus. Some passengers travelling in the bus suffered minor injuries in the incident. According to preliminary investigation, police suspect that the driver had a brake fail and the vehicle eventually hit the lamp post and then a road side tree.

Some locals, however, told the police that the bus knocked him down after hitting the lamp post. Police have started a probe in this regard. The accused bus driver is being interrogated.

Police said a Kolkata bound bus from Diamond Harbour was running at a high speed when the driver lost control over the vehicle. He applied sudden brake but failed to control it. As a result, the speeding bus ran over the pavement and hit the lamp post and then a tree. Some of the passengers were also admitted to a hospital who received injuries during the incident.

The incident triggered traffic jam on Diamond Harbour Road. Locals also staged a demonstration on the spot protesting against rash driving of the vehicles.

The situation was later brought under control by a huge contingent of police. The victim died on spot. Police recovered the body and sent it for postmortem.

In the other incident, Nikita Roy (6), a resident of Moynaguri road area was trying to cross National Highway 31 on Thursday morning when a speeding truck hit her near a petrol pump. The truck driver suddenly applied the brake to save the girl but he failed to do so as the vehicle was running at a high speed. Locals rushed to the spot and rushed the critically injured victim to Jalpaiguri Super specialty hospital where the doctors pronounced her brought dead. Police have already seized the vehicle and conducting raids to nab the driver.