A car speeding along Shakespeare Sarani (formerly Theatre Road) in the central business district of Kolkata rammed into a shop at the crossing of the road with Little Russell Street while taking a right turn on Monday night, police said.
The accident happened around 11.15pm and there was no other vehicle on the stretch, said an officer of Shakespeare Sarani police station.
A 21-year-old youth from Alipore, Rohan Gupta, was at the wheel. Two of his friends were also in the car.
Gupta escaped unhurt but his friends suffered minor injuries. All three were taken to SSKM Hospital. They were discharged after treatment.
Gupta has been arrested on charges of rash and negligent driving.
“The vehicle was speeding from the direction of Kala Mandir towards the Maidan. The driver was taking a right turn through Little Russell Street when he failed to negotiate the speed and lost control of the vehicle. The car crashed into a shop,” the officer said.
“It was sheer luck that there were no pedestrians. Else, there would have been a tragedy.”
The four-wheeler has been seized and will undergo a mechanical test to ascertain whether any snag led to the accident.
Kolkata has witnessed several accidents on empty stretches at night, some of which have claimed lives.
A few weeks ago, a Honda City plying along Raja SC Mullick Road had rammed into a roadside tea stall and an eatery near Jadavpur. One person died on the spot.
In another incident, a car tried to speed past police cordons in front of Jadavpur police station and then near South City before the police forced the driver to stop at the Lords Bakery crossing.
“The biggest problem at night is that drivers and bikers tend to speed. Sometimes they cannot negotiate the speed and meet with accidents,” said an officer.
Ambulance duo nabbed for harassing woman
She lodged her complaint at Muchipara police station based on which the cops started investigating the matter and found the identity of the ambulance through CCTV footage. File picture
An ambulance driver and helper have been arrested for allegedly harassing a woman pedestrian near Moulali crossing in central Kolkata on Tuesday afternoon.
In her complaint, the woman said she was walking along the road near the Moulali crossing when the two youths — later identified as Gourav Daktar, 18 and Sheikh Shehzada, 19 — allegedly started passing objectionable comments. The youths kept on following her in the ambulance, the police said.
She lodged her complaint at Muchipara police station based on which the cops started investigating the matter and found the identity of the ambulance through CCTV footage.
The police zeroed in on the vehicle and arrested the driver and the helper. Both of them have purportedly claimed innocence and denied the charges, police sources said.
Sources said the police would examine witnesses who were present on the spot.