A 50-year-old man was crushed under the wheels of a bus outside Belgachhia Metro station while trying to cross Jessore Road from in front of another bus on Thursday.

Police said it was possible that Badal Das missed the approaching bus before starting his walk on the Shyambazar-bound flank because of a civic work to lay water pipes, a cycle rickshaw stand and a clogged footpath.

The bus on route 30D (Dum Dum Cantonment to Babughat) that knocked him down was trying to overtake a bus on route 3C/1 (Nagerbazar to Anandapur) that had stopped outside the Metro station to pick up passengers, the police said. Overtaking is not allowed on the stretch, though, the police said.

Das, a resident of Kundu Lane in Belgachhia and a photographer by profession, suffered multiple injuries. He was declared dead at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The 30D bus rammed into the divider after hitting Das and the driver jumped off his cabin and fled, the police said.

The accident occurred around 8.55am when Das walked past the front of the 3C/1 bus and came right in the way of the other bus, a traffic police officer said. “Preliminary investigations revealed Das wanted to use a gap in the divider to reach the other flank.”

The accident triggered a snarl on the road for more than 30 minutes. Cops took away the abandoned bus to Ultadanga police station.

The 3C/1 bus drove away after the accident, the police said.

The stretch of Jessore Road in the area is narrow and the width of the Shyambazar-bound flank near the Metro station “has gone down considerably” because of the civic work of laying water supply lines, the police said.

Also, the presence of a cycle rickshaw stand forces pedestrians to walk almost in the middle of the road, risking their lives.

The civic body has covered the dugged up stretch but it is mostly loose clay and bricks and stone chips. As a result, motorists cannot use that portion. Some places on the road have mounds of soil, reducing the width to almost half.

Tarun Saha, chairman of Borough I, said the work of laying water pipes was on and that it would be over before the monsoon. “Old water pipes are being replaced with new ones. There were complaints of leakage and we decided to change the pipes.”

People waiting for buses or those who want to take the Metro have a harrowing time during the morning/evening rush hour. “People are in a hurry. They have to use the road since the footpath is taken over by hawkers,” a traffic police officer said.

“Bus drivers race each other to pick up passengers. Many headed to RG Kar get off the Metro at Belgachhia and take a bus from outside the station to reach the hospital.”

Eyewitnesses told cops that reckless driving was in a way responsible for Das’s death.

“Shopkeepers and rickshaw pullers told us both drivers were racing. When one bus stopped to pick up passengers, the other tried to overtake it in a bid to reach the next stop ahead of the one that had stopped,” the officer said.

The police have started a case of reckless driving and causing death by negligence against the driver of the 30D bus. Cops have asked the route’s bus operator to identify the driver and tell them his whereabouts, the police said.