Biswanath Sarkar, 50, was supposed to buy jewellery for his sister-in-law, whose wedding has been fixed, and get back home. But he never returned. Instead, police fished out his body from the Kestopur canal late on Monday.

Sarkar, a resident of Samarpally, in Kestopur, was crushed under the wheels of a speeding car immediately after he got off an autorickshaw on VIP Road.

Ayan Sinha, 32, a resident of Moore Avenue, in Tollygunge, was also killed in the same accident that occurred around 12.45 am.

Two persons were injured ? Manik Chowdhury, who was with Sarkar, and Sumit Roy, who was with Sinha. Both were admitted to nursing homes in a critical condition.

Police said the car was moving at a high speed towards Ultadanga, when an autorickshaw came in its way. The autorickshaw was moving in the opposite direction, towards Kestopur.

Sinha, who was driving the car, slammed the brakes, but lost control of the vehicle completely. The car started spinning like a top, toppled over the divider and hit the wall on the opposite side of the road.

It then jumped off the thoroughfare and drowned in the canal.

Apart from Ayan, the car dragged off the other three into the water. Sarkar and Chowdhury had then just got off the autorickshaw and were paying the driver.

As news of the accident spread, a team from the Baguiati investigation centre went to the spot.

The cops, however, soon realised that fishing out the vehicle from the water at that hour was almost impossible.

Chowdhury and Roy were, however, rescued with great difficulty.

The cops could lift the car from the canal only on Tuesday morning, around 4.30.

Senior police officers admitted that rash driving, especially in late hours, has become ?very difficult? to handle on this stretch of the artery.

?Motorists just refuse to heed our advice, especially because the road is relatively empty at night,? said Praveen Kumar, superintendent of police, North 24-Parganas.

?Cars moving at a high speed on VIP Road find it difficult to slow down when vehicles or humans appear from the opposite direction,? the police superintendent added.

Family members of Sarkar started worrying when he failed to return even late at night.

Frantic calls for help were made to relatives, but news of his death reached home only the next morning, when police found out details about him from the articles he was carrying.