A 20-year-old boutique owner driving a Honda City was arrested on Sunday morning from a five-star hotel where she had taken refuge after an alleged hit-and-run on the EM Bypass killed a pedestrian on his way to work.
Aditi Agarwal, who lives in a housing complex on Narkeldanga Main Road near Subhas Sarobar, failed breathalyser and blood tests for alcohol after her arrest, police said.
“She was driving past Milan Mela on the EM Bypass around 6.30am when her car hit 48-year-old Hari Mohan Ram, flinging him several feet up in the air. The victim landed on the bonnet of the car and his head hit the windshield with such force that it cracked. He then landed face first on the road,” Ashis Das, the officer-in-charge of Pragati Maidan police station, said quoting two colleagues who were then patrolling the area on a motorbike.
The accident occurred on the Beleghata-bound flank that Ram was crossing. He was to catch a bus or some other public transport to his workplace at the Calcutta Leather Complex, around 16km away, the police said quoting a member of his family.
According to the two cops who witnessed the accident, Aditi allegedly drove off without stopping to check if the person her car had hit was alive. The duo called for “back-up” from the nearby police station before giving chase, Das said.
A police team followed Aditi into the five-star hotel, around 650 metres from the accident spot, and found her car parked there.
At the police’s request, the hotel authorities got two female security guards to escort Aditi out of a lounge.
“She initially denied that her car hit the pedestrian. A breathalyser test showed the alcohol level in her blood to be much higher than permissible for a person at the wheel of a car. She was taken to a government health care unit for blood tests that confirmed a high level of alcohol,” the officer said.
Aditi was booked under sections 304 II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 279 (rash driving) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 185 (driving by a drunken person or by a person under the influence of drugs) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
An Alipore court later remanded her in police custody till Tuesday.
A person convicted of the offences mentioned in the case is liable for a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment.
Metro visited the housing complex where Aditi and her family lives but the security personnel at the main gate said there was nobody at home.
The police said she was possibly returning home from a party in south Calcutta when the accident on the Bypass occurred. “The Honda City was travelling at speed when it hit the victim. The left side of the front bumper cracked open on impact and a head lamp came off its mount. The bonnet was dented and shards from the broken windshield had tufts of the victim’s hair and droplets of blood sticking to them,” a police officer said.
The airbags of the Honda City did not deploy. The engine immobiliser did not kick in either, the officer said.
Aditi, who holds a valid driving licence, had bought the Honda City recently. It couldn’t be immediately confirmed how long she has been driving.