Violence erupted on the streets of Kolkata this morning after a group of extremely agitated local residents in the Barisha area of Behala clashed with police following a road accident where a boy, a Class II student of the Barisha High School, was crushed under the wheels of a speeding truck. Several vehicles were torched by mobs.
Father of the deceased boy Souranil Sarkar is undergoing treatment at state-run SSKM Hospital. Expressing her grief, chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked chief secretary Hari Krishna Dwivedi to know details of the incident. Following the CM directive on Friday morning, Mr Dwivedi called city police commissioner Vineet Goyal to inquire about the incident in Behala. The incident in Behala is being investigated with a forensic team reaching the spot and visiting the place of occurrence, a police officer said.
Ten persons were arrested on charges of vandalism. The accident took place around 6.30am when the boy and his father were crossing a road in the Behala Chowrasta area. Eyewitnesses said, locals vandalized police vehicles and the office of the Diamond Harbour traffic guard and brick batted the armed police and Rapid Action Force personnel. RAF personnel were deployed in large numbers and police fired teargas shells to bring the situation under control, sources said.
The protests led to disruption of traffic on the busy Diamond Harbour Road, a police officer said. Several police officers were injured. The errant truck was later apprehended near Santragachi on Kona Expressway by Howrah city police who handed over the driver to their counterparts in Kolkata Police.
The headmaster of Barisha High School said, “If the police had been vigilant, I wouldn’t have lost my student.” He added, “Other private schools have traffic police controlling the area in front of their premises, but our school lacks such supervision. People pass through our school area on motorcycles instead of bicycles. In the past, many bicycles were stolen from our school, and even though the thieves were caught and handed over to the police, no action was taken.”