White SUV never entered fuel stn on crash night: Pump owner
Times of India | 27 February 2025
12 Burdwan/Panagarh: Police investigating the death of dancer-event manager Sutandra Chatterjee (27), who died in a crash during a high-speed chase on NH-19 early on Monday, are piecing together the final 20 minutes leading to the accident that may hold the key to the truth.
Given the conflicting witnesses' and survivors' accounts and CCTV footage of the last 1 km of the chase, police are trying to find witnesses and video evidence of the entire 17 km stretch of NH-19 used by the cars.
No arrest has yet been made.
Chatterjee's colleagues, who were with her in the car at the time of the accident, claimed a white SUV started chasing them following an altercation near a petrol pump at Pursha, Burdwan. They alleged the SUV's occupants teased and abused them before bumping their vehicle into theirs, initiating the chase that ended with their car crashing into a wall and overturning near Panagarh Rice Mill Road. Chatterjee died on the spot. But police indicated CCTV footage, recovered from old GT Road, showed it was Chatterjee's car that had been chasing the white SUV, raising questions.
TOI drove down the possible chase route — starting from the petrol pump at Pursha, outside which the first altercation allegedly began — stopping at crossings and shops that might have surveillance footage of the pursuit. The fuel station owner told TOI that Chatterjee's car arrived at 12.06 am on Monday. She refuelled her car with 30 litres of petrol and paid Rs 3,390. CCTV cameras there captured Chatterjee at the pump for four-odd minutes. "The woman did not alight from the car. She seemed calm as she scanned the QR code and made the UPI payment while sitting in the front seat. The car left. The white SUV never entered the fuel station. I heard there was a collision between the two cars 200 m ahead. That's what the cops discussed when they visited my pump to take CCTV footage and record our statements," said the owner of Mahamaya Pump, 18 km from the Panagarh accident spot.
Police said in the absence of continuous CCTV images, they had to depend on disjointed footage from shops and hotels on NH-19 and GT Road and the pump. An Asansol Durgapur police commissionerate officer told TOI on Tuesday they had disjointed CCTV footage of around 5 km. "We are trying to trace evidence of first 13 km to check who started the chase and if there was a collision," he said.
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