Key Points
Dancer killed during professional travel after being chased by drunk youths
Vehicle accident occurred while attempting to escape harassment
Police investigating and seeking absconding suspects
Multiple passengers injured in collision
The deceased has been identified as Sutandra Chattopadhyay, a resident of Chandernagor in West Bengal's Hooghly district. Four other passengers travelling by the vehicle received minor injuries.
The accused youth are still absconding though police have seized their vehicle. The police are trying to track them and checking the footage of the CCTV machines installed there.
According to a statement given by the vehicle driver Rajedeo Sharma to the police as well as to the media persons, Chattopadhyay, along with her colleagues, started from Chandannagar for Bihar's Gaya for some professional assignment late on Sunday.
"We stopped at a petrol pump at the National Highway at Budbud in East Burdwan district to fill up the tank and the vehicle in which the drunken youths were travelling also reached there. At the petrol pump only, they started showering abuse towards her. But we ignored them and started towards our destination," he added.
However, the driver said that he then noticed the same vehicle in which the drunk youths were travelling was chasing his vehicle. "They chased us for a long distance till Panagarh. Suddenly, they tried to block our way by overtaking our vehicle and in that process, there was a collision between the two vehicles," Sharma said.
In a desperate attempt to escape, Sharma changed his direction and tried to enter an adjacent service road beside a rice mill there, but lost control of the vehicle, which turned upside down after hitting a public urinal and then a scrap iron shop there.
"Madam died on the spot," Sharma said.
Corroborating his statement, Chattopadhyay's colleague Mintu Mondal, who was also in the vehicle, said that the youth were in a totally drunken state and their approach was quite aggressive from the beginning.
"They were showering unprintable abuses towards her. We ignored them to avoid further chaos. But we never thought that their car would hit ours to stop it," she added.
