A 27-year-old motorbike rider without a helmet had his head sliced in half after smashing into the railing of Zeerut Bridge over Tolly’s Nullah while leading a Saraswati Puja immersion procession late on Monday.

Samrat Chakraborty, a graduate in business administration from the Dinabandhu Andrews Institute of Technology and Management, was part of a Saraswati Puja immersion party that was making its way down the bridge en route to Babughat.

Several persons fainted at the sight of the severed upper portion of Samrat’s head resting on the railing and the rest of the body limp, police said.

The resident of Chetla Hut Road was leading the immersion party with his friend Amit Mandal, 23, on pillion when the tragedy occurred around 11.40pm. The police quoted eyewitnesses as saying that Samrat had sped past the Tata Ace that was carrying the idol when he possibly lost control of the motorbike. The two-wheeler climbed the footpath and the young man was thrown off his seat, causing him to smash his head against the railing with thick, round horizontal bars.

Amit wasn’t wearing a helmet either but he escaped with a fracture after landing on the road. The Chetla resident works for the food delivery wing of an app-cab company.

Samrat had left his job in a private company a few weeks ago. He was the only child of his parents.

According to his friends, Samrat’s body remained stuck to the railing of the bridge for more than half an hour before the police could remove it.

“We were in the Tata Ace. There were two motorbikes in front of us. After Samrat da disappeared from sight, we asked the other two on the second motorbike to go look for them. A few minutes later, they called to inform us about the accident,” said Sanjoy Chakraborty, a resident of Chetla.

The police suspect the motorbike was travelling at speed, causing Samrat to miss a bend on the bridge. CCTV footage supports this theory, an officer said.

A third of fatal road accidents occur between 10pm and 6am, when police presence on the roads is negligible.