The broken footpath below the AJC Bose Road flyover littered with puddles (left) and hawkers forces many to walk down the carriageway at the risk of being run over like 53-year-old Sheela Saha was on Monday afternoon. Pictures by Bishwarup Dutta

A middle-aged woman forced to walk down the carriageway because of hawkers and puddles on the broken footpath was run over by a bus near the Exide crossing on Monday afternoon.

Sheela Saha, a 53-year-old mother of two who had lost her husband Samir in a road accident 10 years ago, was on her way home from her office at Nizam Palace on AJC Bose Road when tragedy struck.

Like thousands of others in this city, she had risked walking on a road notorious for fast-moving traffic after a spell of rain inundated several stretches of the hawker-infested footpath and the overflowing drain created large puddles at places. Her death again highlights two of the biggest problems that pedestrians in Calcutta have to live with — poor civic infrastructure and rash driving that police don’t even deem an offence until someone dies.

“My sister’s death was caused by something every one of us living in Calcutta has to endure on a daily basis,” said Ila Saha, the victim’s younger sibling.

With rainwater cascading down the AJC Bose Road flyover like a waterfall, pedestrians said they had little choice but to negotiate their way through the heavy traffic and racing buses below.

Sheela, a Group-D employee at the Directorate of Quality Assurance, was walking towards the Exide crossing around 1.30pm when a bus on the 21/1 route headed in the same direction ran her over. The accident occurred next to the petrol pump adjacent to the Exide office, barely 25 metres from the crossing.

The driver and the helper of the bus fled even as pedestrians attacked the vehicle, shattering the glass on the windows and denting its body.

The victim was taken to SSKM Hospital but declared dead on arrival. Several of Sheela’s colleagues said it could have been anyone among them. They all feel unsafe walking down that road but don’t have a choice.

The arterial road that connects Park Circus and Hastings is choked throughout the day despite the AJC Bose Road flyover being built in 2005 to ease traffic congestion. Even a short spell of rain like the one on Monday is enough to create large puddles by the side of the road and on the footpath, where chunks of interlocking tiles are missing. The rest of the footpath, of course, is hawker territory.

“There are eateries, pan shops and hawkers all along the road from Nizam Palace till the Exide crossing. When Sheeladi stepped out, the footpath was full of people having lunch, so the only place where she could walk was down the road,” said a senior colleague of the victim.

Sheela had got the job at the Directorate of Quality Assurance after her husband died. A resident of Patuli, she is survived by her daughters Sanchita, an engineering student, and Sushmita, a student of interior decoration.

“They lost their father in an incident of rash driving and today a speeding bus snatched their mother from them. I don’t think anything will change on Calcutta roads,” rued the girls’ aunt Ila.