Riding without helmet, racing claim two lives post midnight in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Two helmetless bikers were killed in two separate accidents in the early hours of Sunday – one apparently while trying to avoid a police check-post around 1am on the approach road of Lake Gardens flyover and the other racing with another biker around 1.30am at Roy Bahadur Road in Behala.

The youths, one aged 21 and the other aged 25, died of severe head injuries after their skulls were fractured on impact when their two-wheelers skidded and they fell head first on the road. Both were killed on the spot.

In the first accident, 21-year-old Samrat Das was on a scooter with a friend riding pillion, along with four other friends on two other bikes, when the accident happened. The group was at the crossing of Deodhar Rahman Road and Lake Gardens Road when Das allegedly tried to take a sudden left on seeing a police check-post, fearing the cops would apprehend them for not wearing helmets. A friend who was part of the group told TOI that all of them had had a bottle of beer each.



“We had somehow dodged a police check-post earlier on Prince Anwar Shah Road and found another group of policemen manning a check-post on the approach road to Lake Gardens flyover. Das was leading the group and he took a left towards Deodhar Road to escape the cops. But he somehow lost control of the scooter and was flung off. His head hit the kerb of the pavement,” said Das’s friend Hasan Rahman.

Police rushed to the spot and took Das and the friend riding pillion — Rajib Ali Molla — to SSKM Hospital where Das was declared dead. Rajib was admitted with multiple injuries. Till late on Sunday, his condition was stated to be critical.

Das, a resident of Madartala Colony in Golf Garden, had left home with friends around 9pm on Saturday and took rounds of the city while recording multiple sessions of Facebook Live. The group drank and had biryani at a roadside shop and was returning home when the accident happened, friends said. Das’s mother said he was a Class-XII dropout and had recently lost his job at a call centre. “I would ask him not to roam around with friends and focus on his job. But he never listened to me,” she said.

In the other accident, 25-year-old Satinath Mahato, a resident of Biren Roy Road (East), was killed when his scooter crashed into the guard rails of fencing around a water pipeline project on a dug-up portion of James Long Sarani around 1.30am.

Police said he was racing with another bike when both vehicles took a right turn from Roy Bahadur Road to James Long Sarani and Mahato’s bike crashed into the barrier. “Even before our team could rush to their rescue, the friends took Mahato to SSKM Hospital, where he was declared dead,” said an officer from the Behala police station.

Police have started two cases of rash and negligent driving. While cops seized the scooter involved in the first accident from the spot, they failed to seize the second vehicle as some of Mahato’s friends and family members had taken it away.