One of the impounded buses at Baguiati police station. Picture by Soumen Bhattacharjee

Mounting anger over racing buses found expression in street justice again on Thursday morning when two accidents occurred on VIP Road within half an hour of each other.

The first of the mishaps involved two buses racing one another on route 217B, leading to the driver of the vehicle that was in front losing control and hitting the road divider near Baguiati.

Passengers stopped both buses at Narayantala and beat up the drivers, Sheikh Manik and Abdul Sawan, before handing them over to police.

A bus on the same route had plunged into the Bagjola canal at Kestopur on April 4, killing 21 people.

About 10.25am, a minibus on the Birati-BBD Bag route hit an unidentified youth near Haldiram’s while trying to race another on the Howrah-New Barrackpore route.

While the passengers who had alighted after the accident were trying to help the youth, both buses sped away. But that that did not stop the passengers from filing a complaint at Baguiati police station.

The injured youth was admitted to a nursing home and later shifted to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in a critical condition.

A bus conductor who had abused a physically challenged man and pushed him off the running vehicle for not carrying small change was beaten up by passengers and pedestrians at Shyambazar on Wednesday. Drivers of two other buses were stopped and beaten up near Maniktala crossing on Sunday for racing.

“Passengers teaching errant drivers a lesson could turn out to be the most effective deterrent to speeding,” retired deputy superintendent of police (traffic) Gouranga Mitra said.

Nandadulal Dutta, the officer-in-charge of Baguiati traffic guard, said it would be inappropriate to support mob attacks. But he admitted that the drivers at the receiving end were to blame for it.

“Although only one bus (WB-4449) hit the divider, the drivers of both were guilty,” another officer said.

Manik had argued that he was speeding so that the other bus could not overtake him. “He would have had to pay a penalty because he had left the depot earlier,” Bapi Ghosh, a passenger, said. Both vehicles were impounded and the drivers fined Rs 2,100 each.