A 31-year-old teacher from Arambagh who travels in “non-stop” government buses connecting Calcutta to districts, with reduced seats following Covid protocol, dialled the police emergency number on Thursday to report that the bus was illegally picking up passengers, leading to crowding.

Police stopped the bus near Fort William and prosecuted the driver and his help under the disaster management act.

Pratiksha Goswami, the teacher, said she had booked the bus ticket through an online portal, like she usually does. “The website clearly shows the seating arrangement. The seats where people cannot sit are marked in grey. I had booked my seat like other days. The bus is supposed to travel non-stop from Arambagh till Esplanade, the destination,” she told The Telegraph.

When she boarded the bus, she found someone else occupying her seat. “When I approached the conductor, I was told to sit elsewhere. It was disappointing to see that despite the best efforts of the government to make Covid rules, people were breaking them. I sat in another seat. But the bus kept stopping and picking up passengers, which was illegal,” she alleged.

Goswami clicked a few photographs of how passengers were made to sit side by side, violating the government notification that clearly mentions public vehicles can run with only 50 per cent occupancy.

Goswami said she was aware that people who did not have smartphones found it difficult to book seats online. For them, bus conductors usually keep a few seats vacant. “But that number is very limited. What happened today was a gross violation,” she said.

On reaching Santragachhi, Goswami dialled 1901 — a women’s distress helpline. They responded almost immediately, she said.

Cops tried to stop the bus once it came down the Santragachhi flyover but the driver allegedly sped past the policeman. A few hundred metres away, the police again apparently tried to stop the bus but failed once more.

Finally, when the bus came down the Vidyasagar Setu and was entering the city through Kidderpore Road, it was forced to stop by a number of police vehicles that blocked its way.

The police evacuated the bus and shifted the passengers to other vehicles to reach Esplanade, which was not far.

Goswami lodged a complaint with Maidan police station and the driver and the help were prosecuted.

The driver told the police that it was difficult to run bus services with half capacity given the fuel prices.

Several officers The Telegraph spoke to said the police had not been prosecuting buses for ferrying passengers over the 50 per cent limit. “If we start prosecuting for crowding, we will have to stop almost every second bus, which will only cause a lot of inconvenience to the people,” said an officer.

“Today’s prosecution was based on a specific complaint,” a senior officer said.

Citizens who depend on public transport are sometimes forced to board crowded buses because of limited public vehicles and restrictions on local trains in the pandemic.