The car carrying the Rathis was at Lake Town’s Clock Tower traffic signal around 3am, waiting for it to turn green, when the bus that had no passengers in it smashed the four-wheeler from behind, police said.
The accident on VIP Road is yet another example of how Calcuttans who follow traffic rules at night often end up paying with their lives for being law-abiding.
Had the Maruti Ignis in which the Rathis were travelling not stopped at the red signal and continued to ply along VIP Road, which had little traffic then, the family members may have been alive today, many in the Rathi family lamented.
All four occupants of the car — Shivshankar Rathi, 54, his mother Kamala Rathi, 73, his son Shrivatsa, 23, and the driver — were taken to the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the Rathis were declared “brought dead”. The driver has been admitted to the hospital with multiple injuries.
In June last year, New Alipore resident Minu Dhandhania was returning from a vacation abroad with her husband and two sons when their Mercedes car was hit from behind at a red light on EM Bypass. The mother of two died while her husband and two sons escaped the tragedy.
The Rathis were returning from a wedding ceremony of Shivshankar’s daughter Ayushi, held in a banquet hall near City Centre-II in New Town.
Shivshankar’s wife Sarala was in another car.
Kaushal Dujari, a relative from Sarala’s side of the family, said: “As the Maniktala home (of the Rathis) was far off from the wedding venue, we had booked rooms in Salt Lake, which is closer.”
The victims and other family members were on their way to Salt Lake.
With his mother, Shivshankar was in the rear seat. His son, Shrivatsa, was next to the driver.
The private bus on route 44 that hit the car was allegedly stolen from Baguiati.
The police had been looking for the bus following a complaint lodged by the owner. Cops spotted the bus near Baguiati, about 4km before the accident site, but failed to stop it, officers said.
Deputy commissioner (detective department), Bidhannagar commissionetare, Biswajit Ghosh, said: “The bus was traced but on seeing the police, the man at the wheel pressed the accelerator. All possible efforts to stop it were taken by on-duty police and traffic personnel but that did not work.”
The owner of the bus, Sujit Ghosh, was part of the chase, the police said. He was on a motorcycle. “The bus sped away,” the owner told The Telegraph.
Ghosh and his brother were on a bike. One of his staff members was in a taxi. Four policemen were on two other bikes. All were chasing the bus, said Ghosh.
Bidhannagar police commissioner Gaurav Sharma said: “Bus theft is a new thing for us. It is not at all routine. We alerted the control room and night patrol teams the moment it was reported to us.”
The Rathis live in Aurobindo Abasan — a cluster of apartments in Maniktala — where neighbours spoke highly of them.
One family said they came to know about the accident around 4.30am, when they heard a wailing sound from the Rathis’ apartment.
“We still cannot imagine what has happened. No word is enough to console the family. They were such good people and we used to have so much fun during Durga Puja,” said a resident of the housing complex.