A woman was crushed to death by a private bus near the Exide intersection on Chowringhee Road on Monday morning.

Reshmi Roy, 44, a resident of Baranagar in the city’s north, was headed to a programme at Rotary Sadan, police said. She suffered multiple injuries and was declared dead at SSKM Hospital, they added.

The accident took place in front of Nehru Children’s Museum around 9.15am.

The driver of the bus has been arrested.

Rogue buses are responsible for more than a third of road accidents in Calcutta, police data shows.

Police sources said CCTV footage suggested that the woman got off a private bus on route 222. “She came under its wheels while trying to cross the road. The driver has claimed that the woman was in a blind spot, not visible on the side-view mirror,” said an officer.

Some news channels quoted “eyewitness accounts” to claim the private bus was racing a state bus.

“There is no evidence that the bus was racing another. The woman was hit by a private bus. She was grievously injured and declared dead at SSKM Hospital,” said an officer of Shakespeare Sarani police station.

The case is now being probed by the fatal squad of the traffic police.

The 222 route connects Behala Chowrasta, on the southwestern part of Calcutta and Dunlop on the northern fringes. The PTS-PG-Exide-Park Street-Esplanade-Central Avenue route that the bus takes is the stretch where maximum office goers board it.

The race to pick up passengers first, particularly during rush hours, often leads to accidents. “We have to pick up more passengers so we can take home some money. Doing so entails risks as every other bus driver is trying to do the same,” said the driver of another bus on the same route.

Buses speeding past traffic signals that have turned red are a common sight on Calcutta roads. Instead of slowing down, the bus drivers often honk past signals and screech to a halt any time a commuter signals them to stop. Sideswiping, tailgating other vehicles and cutting across lanes — size matters and buses take every advantage of it.

A traffic sergeant said buses often try to intimidate other vehicles into clearing their way. “The situation gets worse when the driver spots a bus on a similar route in his rear-view mirror and picks up speed,” the officer said.

The Exide intersection is one of the busiest crossover points in the city. A sea of pedestrians, many of them who have come out of the several gates of Rabindra Sadan Metro station, also pick up pace the moment the traffic signal turns green for them. Similarly, buses and cars accelerate the moment they get a green signal.

The police had in March 2018 tried to regulate pedestrian movement by installing boom barriers at Exide crossing. The move failed, prompting the police to ask the CMC to build a pedestrian overbridge through public-private partnership. It was opened in February 2022.