A 24-year-old college student was killed by a lightning strike on his terrace at home in Regent Park just before the heavy rains on Saturday afternoon.
Koushik Kar lived in Paschim Anandapally in Block D of Regent Park, on the southern fringe of the city.
Around 12.20pm, Koushik’s family members went upstairs, to the terrace of a three-storey building, and found him lying there, police said.
He was barely breathing when his family found him, the police said.
“Koushik was a fitness buff and would regularly visit a gym in the locality. On Saturday, he went upstairs after returning from the gym, apparently to hang some clothes on the terrace and cool off in the rain. A lightning bolt struck him then,” said a senior officer of the Regent Park police station.
The police said Koushik’s father Aloke Kar told them his son was a student of business administration in a college in New Alipore.
“A part of Koushik’s body turned blackish when he was admitted to the MR Bangur Hospital in Tollygunge. Doctors at the emergency said he had died soon after the lightning struck him,” the police officer said.
Koushik’s family members said the downpour had yet to start in the area when he went upstairs to the terrace. But there was frequent thunder and lightning.
Scientists have blamed increasing pollution for the increase in lightning in the Kolkata sky of late.
“In case of direct strikes, a part of the current travels just over the skin surface and a portion of the current moves through the body — usually through the cardiovascular and nervous systems,” said a senior doctor of MR Bangur Hospital.
“The heat produced by the lightning burns the skin. Direct strikes result in cardiac arrests,” the doctor said.
In June, two women — Palani Mondal, 24, and Kajla Naskar, 58, — died of lightning strikes in the Dhapa dumping ground.
In 2019, a 35-year-old resident of Dum Dum had died at the Victoria Memorial after being struck by lightning.
The year before, in June 2018, a 21-year-old cricketer, Debabrata Pal, died of a lightning strike at Vivekananda Park.
As the news of Koushik’s death spread, his neighbourhood was stunned into silence.
“Koushik’s family members are not in a state to speak to anyone,” said a neighbour.
