SUV smashes two-wheeler on New Town road, injures 2 sisters

KOLKATA: Two young sisters returning home on their scooterette after spending the evening at a mall in New Town were severely injured after a drunk neighbour, who was speeding in his Vitara Brezza along a wide and nearly deserted New Town road, hit them from behind on Sunday night. While the elder sister escaped with multiple cuts and bruises on hands and legs, the younger one, who was riding pillion, is battling a severe brain haemorrhage and is on ventilation at the Institute of Neuro Sciences, Kolkata.She is likely to undergo a surgery on Tuesday. Both of them had their helmets strapped on.

Software engineer Nisha Kumari Giri (29) and her younger sister Neha (27), who works with a multinational firm, are both residents of Bokaro in Jharkhand and have been working in the city for the past five years. On Sunday, they were returning to their rented apartment at the Sukhobrishti housing complex in New Town when the accident took place around 9.45pm.
“The two were returning from Downtown mall when the accident took place at the Natunpukur crossing on New Town Main Arterial Road. The sisters were shifted to Charnock Hospital with severe bleeding injuries. The driver of the car was traced outside the same complex. He was drunk when a team of New Town police arrested him,” said an officer of Bidhannagar commissionerate.
According to witnesses, the man — identified as Kaushik Bera — was driving at a breakneck speed and rammed into two guardrails on the road before hitting the scooterette and speeding away. “We were driving along the right side of the road when the car overtook me from the left at a breakneck speed. The next moment, it crashed into two guardrails before hitting the scooterette little ahead of us. The two girls were flung off the two-wheeler. They lay bleeding as the car sped away,” said Saikat Das, a resident of New Town.
As the car sped towards the Shapoorji complex, some people spotted it outside the complex and finding the driver in a drunken state, roughed him up. A police team from New Town rescued him and took him to the Bidhannagar Subdivisional Hospital, from where he was later shifted to NRS Hospital for treatment. The car was seized.
“My niece, who was riding the scooterette, told me she has no clue how the car hit her. All she remembers is that something hit the scooterette from behind and she lost control,” said Anupam Giri, their uncle. Giri added that while Nisha has suffered multiple soft-tissue injures, cuts and abrasions on her limbs, Neha’s condition deteriorated and she was taken to INK at Mullickbazar from Charnock Hospital on VIP Road. “Their parents have come from Bokaro and are spending anxious moments at the hospital. Doctors said the condition of the younger sister was very critical,” he said.
Doctors at Charnock Hospital said Neha had suffered severe traumatic brain injury with multiple contusions and haemorrhage. “ She needs an immediate surgery but as she has very low blood pressure, the operation was not possible on Monday. But a surgery must be conducted by Tuesday,” said a Charnock Hospital spokesperson.