Bengal Chemical: A 50-year-old man was crushed to death by a bus on Maniktala Main Road, in front of the gate of Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, on Tuesday afternoon.

A traffic sergeant and a constable took Madhai Panja to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

Police failed to identify the bus till late on Friday.

The Duttabad resident was trying to cross the road around 2pm when the bus, which was travelling from EM Bypass towards Kankurgachi, hit him from behind, the police said.

"The bus sped away after hitting the man. The wheels crushed his head," recounted Shiv Prasad Shaw, who witnessed the accident from his roadside tea stall.

"The man was carrying vegetables in a packet, which got scattered."

An officer of Phoolbagan police station said they were scanning footage of CCTV cameras installed along the stretch to identify the killer bus. "We are trying to track down the bus and arrest the driver. A case has been started," the officer said.

Panja's mother-in-law Champa Das said he had gone to a vegetable shop near Kankurgachi and was walking back home when the bus knocked him down.

A traffic police officer said buses would often speed down the stretch of Maniktala Main Road between the Phoolbagan and the Bypass crossings. "Buses often race in a bid to pick up more passengers. We prosecute them whenever we can but that is hardly a deterrent," the officer said.

Dum Dum Park

A private bus on route 237, which plies between Birati and Babughat, rammed into a government bus from behind on VIP Road, near the Dum Dum Park bus stop.

A few passengers in the government bus were injured and taken to a private healthcare unit in Lake Town. Gopal Das, 31, who was driving the private bus, has been arrested.

On Monday night, a private bus racing another lost control and hit a crash barrier near the Golaghata pedestrian subway before plunging into a roadside ditch. Five passengers were injured.

On Monday morning, six people were injured when the bus they were travelling in rammed into a civic garbage truck on EM Bypass.