In the wake of the second heart-rending road accident in the span of a week ~ the first in Bengal’s Murshidabad district and yet another in Kolkata’s EM Bypass ~ the fundamentals of road safety, that were thrashed out on Monday, ought to have been a given in any metropolitan city. The fact that these have been largely non-existent in Kolkata reaffirms the title of Andre Gunder Frank’s book, The Development of Underdevelopment.

Just as the regulation on the driver’s use of the mobile has come awfully late in the day ~ after 42 deaths in the Bhairav river ~ so too are the contemplated measures on the Bypass. The fine print being that the police can be quite ineffectual, as in Murshidabad, when not sluggish in its response. The two mishaps are both the same and different, the major point of distinction being the extent of mob fury which in a bizarre manner has spelt the difference between town and country.

True the police action on the Bypass had somewhat deflected the focus from the enormity of the tragedy ~ two young men on a bicycle were crushed to death by a bus while on their way to a wedding. The policemen had little or no option, targeted as they were with stones, with buses on fire, cars vandalised, and the highway chock-a-block with traffic in a display of angst that is typical of Bengal.

The tragedy has once again thrown up the dire shortcomings of policing in what has often been referred to as a “borderline zone”, specifically the Chingrihata crossing in the Beliaghata area, where the jurisdiction of Kolkata Police ends and that of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate begins. The logic behind such commissionerates is of course quite a different story.

Almost inevitably, the lack of coordination has been at the core of almost perfunctory policing, not merely in the context of traffic control but also the spread of crime. Yet we must give it to the law-enforcement authorities that a joint operation of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate and Lalbazar was mounted last Saturday in the face of the accident and the mayhem thereafter.

An old recipe is sought to be warmed up, if Monday’s prescription is any indication ~ the construction of two footbridges, an underpass, and a separate track for cycles. Whether or not the Bypass is suitable for cycles is a matter that calls for earnest reflection given the heavy traffic ~ almost 24 X 7.

As critical as the structural changes in the landscape of the EM Bypass is the dire imperative to take a call on the pattern of traffic that is permissible. Aside from the burgeoning traffic, the Chingrihata intersection is in the vicinity of hospitals, a hotel, a sports stadium not to forget an entertainment park. More immediately, the traffic management needs to be streamlined. It wasn’t when Biswajit Bhunia and Sanjay Banu were crushed to death at the intersection. It is a thin line that divides an accident from mob violence.