A 26-year-old woman died when her car met with an accident while allegedly being chased by drunken men in an SUV in West Burdwan during the early hours of Monday.

Sutandra Chatterjee, a resident of Chandernagore in Hooghly who ran an event management company and managed a dance troupe, died after her car hit a concrete wall off NH19 in Panagarh, Kanksa, and turned turtle.

Chatterjee had been on her way to Gaya in Bihar along with four companions including the driver. Two of the companions suffered minor injuries while driver Rajdoot Sharma and the other companion were unhurt.

Sharma claimed the car was trying to get away from an SUV whose drunken occupants were making lewd remarks as they gave chase.

Asansol-Durgapur police commissioner Sunil Kumar Choudhury dismissed the charges of harassment or lewd behaviour, claiming the “unfortunate” accident occurred following a race between two cars.

Later in the day, Chatterjee’s mother Tanusree Chatterjee endorsed the driver’s allegation and suggested the police were “trying to hide” something.

“No lewd behaviour or harassment was reported to us. We have learnt from CCTV footage that the blue Tiago of the deceased was chasing the white SUV,” commissioner Choudhury said.

Sutandra Chatterjee Sourced by The Telegraph

“The deceased was going to Gaya but, surprisingly, instead of taking NH19 — which is the easier route — the car of the deceased suddenly took the old GT Road in Panagarh while following the SUV. However, the woman died in the accident, which is unfortunate.”

Chatterjee had left her home in Chandernagore around 9.30pm on Sunday. The accident at Panagarh, around 133km away, occurred around 1am.

Driver Sharma said he had taken the service road from the highway just before the crash to escape the SUV.

He said the SUV dashed against Chatterjee’s hatchback twice during the chase between Pursha — off Galsi in East Burdwan — and Panagarh, which are 33km apart.

Police sources said that CCTV footage had shown Chatterjee’s car stopping at a refuelling station at Pursha around midnight. The men in the SUV, who may have spotted her in the car, started following it from the petrol pump.

The damaged public toilets that Chatterjee’s car crashed into. Picture by Dipika Sarkar

“The SUV kept following us since we left the petrol pump. Suddenly they started chasing us. They hit our car twice to try and stop us,” Sharma said. “They were trying to overtake us and intercept our car.”

One of the occupants of the Tiago, Mintu Mondal, who was unhurt, said there were four or five men inside the SUV.

“A man in a white shirt who wore spectacles and sat beside the driver was shouting lewd remarks at our Madam. Three men sitting in the rear seat were ordering us to stop. Had we stopped, they might have abducted our Madam,” Mondal said.

Sharma and Mondal said they had not spotted any highway patrol team between Pursha and Kanksa. “We were feeling helpless and our Madam, too, was scared,” Mondal said.

Sharma said that desperate to get away, he had hurriedly taken a left turn from the highway and lost control of the car, which hit the wall of a grocery store, a public toilet, and machine parts lying around before turning turtle.

The SUV occupants seem to have got off and approached the overturned Tiago but fled, leaving their vehicle behind, as local people rushed to the site. A team from Kanksa police station arrived sometime later.

Chatterjee was taken to a local hospital where she was declared dead on arrival. She had been in the front passenger seat.

The police are looking for the SUV’s occupants, said Abhishek Gupta, deputy commissioner, East Division, Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate.

“We have seized their vehicle. They are probably local people and could not have travelled far on foot,” Gupta said.

The police found empty liquor bottles inside the SUV, which showed dents on both ides suggesting it had dashed against something hard.

Chatterjee’s mother and a relative arrived at Kanksa police station later in the day and expressed anger against the police and the law-and-order situation.

“I lost my husband to cancer just eight months ago. My daughter meant the world to me. Now, I have lost my entire world. Had there been proper policing on the highway, the incident could have been averted,” she said.

“Wherever such incidents happen in the state, the police try to hide something. Where is the safety and security of women?”

She said her daughter was travelling to Gaya on an event management assignment.

The West Burdwan police said three patrol teams, each headed by an assistant commissioner, had been on duty on the 45km stretch between Budbud and Andal, which overlaps substantially with the route taken by the Tiago.

Officers in East Burdwan claimed two highway police patrol teams were on duty on parts of the route taken by the Tiago in the district.

Some officers expressed suspicion how the remaining occupants of the Tiago could be left almost unhurt while Chatterjee was killed, apparently on the spot.

“We are probing all angles,” an officer said.

The police said the SUV had been bought in November 2021 and registered at the Durgapur regional transport office against the name of Bablu Yadav, a resident of Panagarh. Yadav, a car-scrap dealer, could not be found at his home, the police said.

They said a case of traffic violation, registered by the Uttar Pradesh police, had been pending against the SUV since last year.