Rahul Banerjee, 33, who was at the wheel of the Honda City that killed a man and left six persons injured in Jadavpur in south Kolkata on Saturday night, owns a start-up in Bangalore and was to return there next week, police said.
He has told the police that he came to Kolkata to meet his ailing grandmother.
Police said they did not find a driving licence on Banerjee after the accident.
“He said he is not habituated to driving on Kolkata roads. He claimed he had a driving licence at home. But this has to be verified,” said an officer of the traffic department of Kolkata police.
The Honda City that Banerjee was driving is registered in the name of a relative and had 27 traffic citation cases lodged against it in the recent past.
The police said the fines for all the citations had been paid and currently there was no pending case against the vehicle. It is, however, not clear who was at the wheel when these traffic violations were reported.
The police said they had learned that Banerjee had his school and college education in Bangalore. He worked for a mobile phone manufacturing company before opening his start-up. If convicted, Banerjee can be imprisoned for up to 10 years.
The man who died, Thomas Somi Karmakar, 50, worked at an eatery in Jadavpur. He was sipping tea and chatting with his friends, like on other days, when the accident happened.
“He (Karmakar) was originally a resident of SN Banerjee Road but shifted to a rented property in Jadavpur’s Chittaranjan Colony because it was closer to the eatery where he worked,” said an officer.
Karmakar, who was the sole earning member of the family, left behind two school-going daughters, an officer said.
The injured included the owner of the tea stall, Swapan Roy, and his wife Padma, residents of Bapujinagar. They were treated and discharged from Iris Multispeciality Hospital.
A 13-year-old girl, Sohini Banik, who was returning home from tuition with uncle Bankim Banik, 40, was among the injured.
She complained that she could not see anything. She underwent a CT scan of the brain and doctors said the report was normal.
