The accident near the airport early on Sunday, in which a bus overturned killing a passenger and injuring several, occurred not only because of the condition of the road but also overloading, according to police.

The Malda-bound bus had around 40 passengers. It toppled over when the driver tried to drive past a pothole near BT College on Jessore Road at 12.30am.

An officer of the airport police station said on Sunday that while the condition of the stretch could not be ruled out as a cause of the fatal accident, the fact that the bus was packed with goods was also a major factor.

The goods — mostly tins of ghee and steel rods — were being carried on the roof and also packed behind seats.

Residents of the area blamed the road condition and said the police tend to look the other way though accidents involving overloaded buses were a regular affair.

“You would be hard pressed to find an even surface on the stretch,” said resident Animesh Goswami, who took part in rescue efforts. “But no maintenance is ever carried out and such accidents will recur.”

Officers of the airport police station, too, blamed the road condition. “As many as 12 accidents were reported to us last week alone,” said an officer.

He, however, was evasive when prodded about why buses meant to carry only passengers were allowed to carry goods.

“A regular drive is required to stop this (overloading of passenger buses). But we are short on manpower, which is why we have to overlook the matter,” the officer said. He added that they did not even have the “infrastructure” to remove the illegal goods from buses.

The accident also brought to the fore the poor breakdown recovery operations of the local police. It took them nearly two hours to remove the bus from the spot, by which time a long queue of vehicles had formed.

“The breakdown van came nearly two hours after the accident and it removed the bus within 10 minutes,” said a local resident.

The police claimed the van was delayed by the traffic snarl. “I will check whether there had been an inordinate delay in removing the bus,” said Champak Bhattacharjee, the superintendent of North 24-Parganas police.

An official of the PWD, which is responsible for maintaining the road, said the department has to wait till the end of monsoon for major repairs. “We can only carry out patchwork till then,” he said.