Fleeing perverts, event management firm owner dies in road crash

PANAGARH/CHANDERNAGORE: A high-speed car chase on national highway 2 early Monday ended in tragedy as 27-year-old dancer and event manager Sutandra Chatterjee lost her life when her vehicle overturned. Chatterjee, a resident of Chandernagore in Bengal, was traveling to Gaya in Bihar for work when the accident occurred around 12.30am. While Chatterjee, seated in the front passenger seat, bled to death, at least two of her colleagues suffered injuries. Police have seized both vehicles involved in the chase, but have yet to make any arrests.
Durgapur-Asansol police commissioner Sunil Kumar Choudhary said the crash resulted from an overtaking attempt gone wrong. "We have studied CCTV footage and have found that trouble arose when a white car, while overtaking the woman's car, grazed it. As per CCTV footage, the woman's car was chasing the other vehicle and met with the accident leading to the woman's death. We have started a case based on a complaint by one of the occupants of the car in which the woman was traveling," he said.


Chatterjee's colleagues, including Mintu Mondal - who later lodged an FIR - and driver Rajdeo Sharma, gave a different account. They alleged that the occupants of the white car had been harassing Chatterjee before ramming their vehicle multiple times over a 10km stretch.
"There were five men in the car. They constantly honked and made obscene gestures at madam while driving next to our car. They kept overtaking us and then allowing us to go ahead. They chased us till Panagarh (150km northwest of Kolkata), and in the process, there were multiple collisions between our cars. We tried to avoid them, fearing they were robbers," said driver Sharma.
According to Mondal, the white car's occupants appeared drunk and abandoned their vehicle at the scene before fleeing. "We crawled out of the car, but madam was bleeding and unresponsive. The youths in the white car stood there for a while but fled, leaving their vehicle behind," he said, claiming they had initially caught two of the men but had to release them to tend to Chatterjee.
Sutandra was the sole breadwinner of her family after her father - singer Sukanta Chatterjee - died from cancer. She took care of her ailing mother and two grandmothers while managing her newly launched event management company Moonwalk, based in Gaya.
Her grieving mother Tanushree rejected the police version of events and demanded immediate arrests.
"I lost my husband eight months ago, and now my only child. This is not a way to die," she said.