The banyan tree at the Pous Mela grounds in Santiniketan under which the woman died. (Soumi Bhattacharya)

Dec. 27: An old woman died gasping for breath on the Pous Mela grounds in Santiniketan just before dawn today as police and local people searched in vain for a vehicle to take her to hospital, just 600 metres away.

By the time transport was arranged at 5am, an hour and a half after the woman had been found lying under a banyan tree, she was dead.

An on-duty India Reserve Battalion jawan was the first to spot the woman, who used to beg in front of the fairground, under the tree. It was about 3.30 on a wintry morning, and only a handful of people were at the fair, which is held round the clock.

Eyewitnesses said the woman wore only a white sari and was shivering. Early morning temperatures in Bolpur have been as low as 6 degrees Celsius.

The jawan, who refused to be named, had quickly informed the makeshift police control room on the fairground about the woman.

Adhir Mondal, who sells coffee at the fair, said that around 3.45am, he heard the jawan and two of his colleagues discussing how to arrange for a vehicle. “Then the jawan rushed towards the police outpost,” said Mondal, who had missed the last train to Burdwan, where he lives, and spent the night at the fairground.

Mondal, 35, said another hawker tried to cover the frail-looking woman with a shawl but she refused, saying she was having difficulty breathing. The jawan returned after an hour. “He had not been able to find a car,” Mondal said.

Bimal Garai, another hawker, said: “We did not know what to do. Some policemen at the fair asked us to arrange for a van-rickshaw.” Garai said a local youth told the police he could find one.

By the time the young man returned with a van-rickshaw, the jawan too had arranged for a Tata Sumo from the office of the subdivisional police officer. “But the woman was dead by then,” Garai said.

Mati Baidya, a hawker, said she saw the jawan crying after the woman died.

Asked why the police at the fairground had failed to take the woman to the Visva-Bharati Hospital on time, Birbhum police chief Humayun Kabir said: “I have heard about the incident. I have asked the subdivisional police officer to investigate the matter.”