A crash on Basanti Highway in the Boyarmari area killed two toto passengers and injured two others after a Scorpio reportedly collided with a toto before leaving the road and falling into a roadside waterbody on Wednesday afternoon. The vehicle was associated with former Sandeshkhali MLA Sukumar Mahat, who was not inside it at the time, according to a report by Bartaman Patrika.
The crash occurred in the jurisdiction of the Rajbari outpost of Najat police station. After receiving information, police reached the site and rescued the two toto passengers. They were taken to Minakha Hospital, where doctors declared them dead, the report said. Both victims were residents of the Bhangar area in South 24 Parganas.
Two other people injured in the collision were initially taken to Minakha Rural Hospital. They were later shifted to a government hospital in Kolkata for further treatment. The report did not provide their names or a detailed account of their medical condition.
According to Sukumar Mahat, he had asked the driver to bring the vehicle because he needed to visit a doctor. Mahat said the crash followed a race between two totos. His statement was carried in the report as an account of how the collision may have occurred; the report did not indicate that police had publicly confirmed this explanation.
The Scorpio reportedly hit a toto and then lost control before falling into the waterbody beside the highway. The collision and the subsequent fall created two separate rescue challenges: recovering passengers from the road crash and dealing with a vehicle that had left the carriageway. Bartaman Patrika reported that Mahat had assured support to the families of those who died.
The incident has also raised questions about how a serious collision occurred on a wide stretch of Basanti Highway. The available report does not specify the speed of either vehicle, road conditions, traffic-control arrangements, whether the road had protective barriers beside the waterbody, or whether any formal finding had been made about the cause of the crash.
The deaths underline the risks faced by passengers using totos on highways that also carry larger vehicles. However, the report does not establish whether the toto was operating on a designated route, whether the vehicles were overtaking, or whether any traffic violation had been recorded. Those details would be relevant to determining responsibility and identifying whether the crash involved a broader road-design or enforcement failure.
Police from the Najat area were handling the immediate response, including the rescue and hospital transfer of the victims. Further findings on the collision, the condition of the vehicles and the circumstances leading to the Scorpio entering the roadside waterbody were not included in the supplied report.
