The bus after the accident near Park Circus. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Calcutta, Sept. 20: A man died after a bus trying to speed past an auto-rickshaw overturned on No. 4 bridge on the EM Bypass-Park Circus connector this afternoon.

The 20-seater chartered bus, coming from Ultadanga, hit the bridge’s concrete divider on the right around 4.30pm.

The Rabindra Sadan-bound yellow bus was in a rush to get to the Park Circus seven-point crossing, officers at the Karaya Road police station said.

A man’s head was crushed and he died instantly. His identity had not been established till late at night but the police said he was probably the helper of the bus. The driver fled after the incident.

Ten passengers were injured. They were taken to Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, but most of them were discharged after primary treatment.

Mithu Roychowdhury, 31, from Ashok Nagar in North 24-Parganas, is among the unlucky few who would have to stay in hospital.

The engineer with a private firm has fractured her left leg. She was going to Rabindra Sadan from her Salt Lake office.

“The driver was trying to overtake an auto-rickshaw and lost control. He hit the divider and the bus overturned,” said Firoz Alam, an eyewitness.

“Most of the passengers were bleeding profusely and one of them seemed dead with the left side of the head and face completely smashed. They were taken to hospital by the police,” he said.

IT professional Arunabha Chatterjee, who works in Sector V, was on the bus. “I took an auto from Salt Lake and got down at the EM Bypass-Beliaghata crossing. There, I boarded this bus,” said Chatterjee, who received a head injury.

“The bus was running at very high speed and the driver was trying to overtake another vehicle. It (the accident) happened all of a sudden and I lost consciousness,” said the resident of Bagmari Road, his head swathed in bandage.

Nikunja Biswas, 48, received an injury in the abdomen, but doctors said his condition was stable.

According to the Karaya police officers, the bus was on an unscheduled trip and those on the bus were not its regular passengers.

“We are trying to find the owner of the bus and a search is on for the driver,” an officer said.