Title - 8 suburban employees lost their lives in last months in Mumbai Division

In country’s busiest suburban network commuters often lose their lives due to lack of pull proof safety measures but now the perils of manning the system is snatching the lives of railway staff.

One Railway constable, two gangmen and five railway officers have been run over by trains in the span of last eight months. This has set off alarm bells in Mumbai division. Officials admits that there are no safety related protocols for railway employees.

The lastest such incident occurred last Thursday night when a deputy station master Ashok Azad, was ran over by a local train near Vile Parle. Ashok was attending a case of trespassing, the incident held up trains on track for 40 minutes around 9 PM.

According to a senior official, Railway does not have any standard operating procedure for its employees. In night working on tracks becomes even more challenging. Operation staff do not have signal when train approaches on work site due to which onus of safety entirely depends on them.

According to union sources, 44 railway workers, which includes contractual labourers, have lost their lives on tracks in Mumbai division since 2010.