Sick man dies as cops fight over jurisdiction

According to officers of the Bantra police station, who finally reached the spot, Santra had alighted at the Belgachia bus stop from a Baluhati-Esplanade minibus around 6 am. “He was an employee of a private company in Belgachia. Upon alighting, he felt ill and approached the nearby petrol pump for help. He poured some water on his head there. Still feeling ill, he lay down,” said an officer.

Upon spotting the sick man, the Howrah Traffic Police informed the Liluah police station, whose jurisdiction Belgachia comes under.

Locals said no policeman arrived on the spot till 10.30 am and they had to call up the Bantra police station. Finally, police from Bantra came and took him to the Howrah general hospital.

Officers said when they arrived, they found Santra unconscious. “He was taken to the Howrah general hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival,” the officer said. Initial investigations show he died of a massive cardiac arrest. He was a resident of Baluhati.

Santra’s brother-in-law Mihir Lal Das, who came to identify his body, was inconsolable. “If only the police had taken action at the right time and he could have been sent to hospital on time, he may have survived,” Das said. “This inaction on part of the police has led to his death.”

In April, Padam Kumar Pant, a Nepali national working in Howrah as a security guard, suffered the same fate.

During his return from vacation, he had alighted from a bus near Parbati Cinema under Bantra police station. Having forgotten his bag on the bus, he tried to chase it, but felt winded soon and sat down by the roadside, where he suffered a heart attack.

Both Bantra and Shibpur police station refused to accept that the spot came under their jurisdiction. Pant lay there for over six hours and breathed his last. Three officers belonging to the two stations were suspended, but it appears that the Howrah police learnt little.