Bapi Sen is not the only victim of the 1991 batch of sub-inspectors/sergeants who had joined the force.

The count goes up to six more, including one who died while the training was on.

“It seems ours is a cursed batch. We have lost members almost every year. Bapi’s death found its way into the media, but not all have had the same coverage,” laments M.M. Das, a sub-inspector of the detective department.

It started with the death of Uday Rabi Bhattacharjee. This was end-1992, when a group of new recruits were on their way back by train from shooting practice in Krishnagar.

The local train was crowded and Uday was hanging out of the door. Between Kharagpur and Titagarh, his head hit a post.

Bhattacharjee’s colleagues pulled the chain, scooped him up and rushed him to SSKM Hospital. For five days, he battled for life in the intensive care unit and then died.

The next to go was five years later, in 1997. “Nirmalya Mukherjee was on duty in Malda when a truck hit him, killing him on the spot. The next year, it was Tarak Dutta, from Calcutta Police,” claims Bhagirath Ghosh, batchmate and a Calcutta Police sub-inspector.

Biswajit Ganguly died in 1999. On duty at the approach of Dhakuria bridge, he died when a taxi driver, booked barely 30 minutes ago for rash and negligent driving, returned to the spot seeking vengeance and crushed him under the vehicle’s wheels.

Ganguly, however, had not booked the driver, who was later convicted for murder and jailed for life.

If the last day of 2002 robbed Bapi Sen, in 2003, it was Debdas Acharya.

A sub-inspector with Calcutta Police, Acharya had left home in the morning and reached the neighbourhood bus stop for a bus to Calcutta High Court, where he had been expected to be present in connection with a case.

A bus on a different route rammed into him from behind. The accident took place at Behala.

“We have tried to reason why the batch of 1991 was cursed. It’s unbelievable, but that’s the way it has been. Sometimes, during our addas, we wonder who’ll be the next to go. It’s a scary thought,” said Amitava Sarkar, another of Bapi Sen’s batchmates.