Death fails to stir queue - Senior citizen Collapse and dies after ATM wait

TT, Chinsurah, Dec. 3: People waiting in a queue outside an ATM kiosk in Bandel, about 60km from Calcutta, remained unmoved as one among them collapsed this morning.

Kallol Roy Chowdhury, 52, who had been waiting for about 30 minutes, was behind two men at the door when he slumped down on the stairs of the kiosk.

Roy Chowdhury, an employee of the state government's land and land reforms department posted at Cooch Behar and a resident of Behala, lay unattended for about 20 minutes before a tea-stall owner came to his help.

Ganesh Prasad claimed many walked past Roy Chowdhury to enter the kiosk but none "cared to help him".

"I called up the Bandel police outpost alerting them about the man lying outside the kiosk. Police asked me to get him admitted to hospital. But they didn't turn up," Prasad said.

He then called up Mahesh Rajbor, a member of the local Debanandapur Gram Panchayat, Prasad said.

Rajbor hired an auto and took Roy Chowdhury to Imambara Sadar Hospital in Chinsurah where he was declared dead.

Roy Chowdhury's death comes a day after two men, aged 72 and 80, died while standing in bank queues at Habra in North 24-Parganas and Raidighi in South 24-Parganas.

A relative said Roy Chowdhury used to visit his family in Behala every fortnight.

He had boarded the Paharia Express last night and got off at Bandel this morning, the relative said.

"This was the usual practice. He used to take a local train from Bandel to Naihati and then another one to Sealdah before heading home," his brother Swapan said. "It is shocking that no one from the queue came forward to help my brother. He had hypertension."

He was headed home today to hand over a part of his salary to his wife for household expenses, his brother said. His son is in Class V at Nava Nalanda.

Prasad, the tea-stall owner, said he had seen Roy Chowdhury in the queue around 8.30am.

He probably felt it would be better to withdraw money from this ATM instead of hunting for one in Behala, Prasad said.