The mangled bicycle of one of the victims dumped in the damaged bus that killed two men on Monday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

The driver of a private bus lost control of his vehicle while negotiating a Matador parked illegally on New Santoshpur Road and hit two men and four girls on Monday morning. The men died.

The Rapid Action Force (RAF) was deployed and teargas shells fired to control mob fury after the accident.

The bus, on its way to Akra Phatak from Esplanade, first hit Rabin Banerjee, 50. A local resident, he was cycling to his garment shop.

The bus then hit 50-year-old Mohammad Ali, a hawker. He died on the spot.

It also hit four girls from a nearby slum, who were returning home after fetching water from a roadside tap, before ramming into a wall. The driver got out and fled.

The injured were taken to Vidyasagar Hospital by local residents and police. Banerjee succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

A mob damaged the bus, set ablaze a motorcycle and hurled bricks and stones at the policemen.

The RAF and Combat Force were called in to control the situation. A large contingent of police, headed by South 24-Parganas superintendent Praveen Kumar and additional superintendent (industrial) D.P. Singh, fired five rounds of teargas shells.

Five people were arrested for attacking the police and damaging property, said Kumar. Traffic was suspended in the area for nearly three hours from 10.30am.

“We were sitting in a tea stall and saw the bus lose control while steering past a Matador, which was offloading building material. Before we could understand what was happening, there were a number of people lying on the road, bleeding, and the vehicle had rammed into a wall,” said Pulak Sen, a local resident.

Accidents are frequent in the area and the police hardly take a step to prevent them, said a local resident.