A four-year-old child and her father died after being run over by a taxi with an allegedly dozing driver while they were walking to board a bus for school near Chiria More in north Calcutta on Tuesday morning.

The taxi driver was arrested on the spot. He is said to have told the police that he dozed off and lost control of the vehicle. The police have charged the driver with murder.

The accident spot near Chiria More

“No other vehicles or pedestrians were on the road at the time of the crash. Dozing off cannot be an excuse for killing two people on the road,” said an officer of the local Chitpore police station.

Amit Kumar Shaw, 30, and daughter Mishika, 4, were walking along the kerb when the taxi hit them around 6.20am.

The deputy commissioner of police, north, Dipak Sarkar, said the murder case was started based on the family’s complaint.

“The family feels this is not an accident but a murder. We have started a case accordingly. It is too early to comment on the progress of the investigation. The driver has been arrested,” said Sarkar.

The fatal squad of the traffic police has taken over the investigation.

The taxi that hit them was heading north in the direction of Barrackpore. The injured were taken to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where they were declared dead.

Shaw’s wife Anjana was at home like other days. Her daughter’s school had just reopened after the Puja break.

Shaw was an employee of the state power department and was posted at Haroa in North 24-Parganas. Mishika was a Nursery student at a school along BT Road.

“He (Shaw) would accompany his daughter to school every day while his wife would pick her up after school. That was their daily routine,” said a relative.

Kolkata Police seized the taxi and arrested the driver, identified as Saheb Das, a resident of north Calcutta.

Several students have lost their lives on the city’s roads in the past few months.

Earlier this month, a Class IX student on his way to tuition died after being hit on his head by the fork-like arm of a payloader engaged in repairing a pothole-riddled road in Bansdroni.

In February, a Class VII student who was riding pillion on her mother’s scooter died after she fell off the two-wheeler when its handle got snagged in the truck’s rear fender and was crushed under the wheels of the giant vehicle.

The police had said the mother and the child were flung off the scooter at the Kaikhali intersection on VIP Road before the child came under the wheels of the vehicle.

In July, a 17-year-old student who was returning home from school in Salt Lake was run over by the rear wheel of the bus he had just got down from.Close shave

A mother and her five-year-old son had a close shave at Gariahat on Tuesday afternoon as their scooter was hit by an unidentified vehicle on Gariahat Road. Both were injured.

Police said Megha Sengupta, 35, and son Abhiyank, a student of South Point School, were taken to Manipal Hospital in Dhakuria, from where they were discharged after treatment.

The police said Megha was wearing a helmet but Abhiyank was not. The Senguptas are residents of Hazra Road.