Title - Train chaos snuffs out three lives in Mumbai

Three commuters were killed and 20 others injured when they fell off from a suburban train after hitting a protruding ladder attached to a railway signal between Nahur and Mulund stations on Thursday, even as services on the Central Railway’s mainline remained affected for the second day.

The freak mishap took place at 9.20 am, when some passengers fell off in one after another from the Badlapur-Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) train near signal no K-052 between Mulund and newly constructed Nahur railway stations in north-east Mumbai.  The Central Railway officials in general attributed the mishap to “extreme over-crowding” of the CST-bound train.

“Since no rail structure including gantries, OHE masts etc was found infringing the movement of trains in that stretch, it appears that this unfortunate and freak incident is a result of extreme over-crowding on the train. We suspect that a part of some object carried by passenger protruding out of the train might have hit the maintenance platform attached to signal ladder, thereby causing the platform to dent”, the CR officials said.

“Most of the injured have got injuries around elbow and arms as the level of platform is almost at the top of door level,” the officials said.

However, injured commuters contested the official version, said that the train was not as “extremely over-crowded” as was being made out by the officials and that they were protruding portion of a metallic ladder attached to the signal. As is normally the case Mumbai during peak hours, the affected commuters were hanging out of the doors of the train compartments. “The ladder might have given way long before the train passed and it was protruding towards the tracks,” one of the eyewitnesses said.

Identifying the three dead commuters as Prateek D Chedda (24), Jiten S Wara (29) and Ganesh Yadav (25), the officials said that the ten injured persons had been admitted to Rajawadi Hospital at Vidyavihar, MM Agarwal Hospital at Mulund and LTMG Hospital, Sion.

Meanwhile, Railway Minister Mukul Roy expressed deep concern over the incident and extended the condolences to the bereaved families. He has also announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs2 lakh to the next of kin of the three deceased passengers. He also announced an ex-gratia amount of Rs500 to commuters with simple injuries and Rs5,000 to those who sustained grievous injuries.

In a related development, suburban trains continued to run behind their schedules for the second consecutive day, following the damage caused to signalling system in Kurla on Tuesday night.

Trains ran 30 minutes to one hour late, causing considerable inconvenience to at least 2.5 million commuters who use the Central Railway’s mainline daily. There were huge crowds at various railway stations. The disruption train services had a cascading effect on the public road transport system in the city, where serpentine queues were seen at the bus stops.

While it was difficult to find for harried people, there were a huge traffic jam on the Express highway between Sion and Thane. “The services are running late by about 10-15 minutes only in Dn direction. Restoration is in full swing and except for a few signals on Dn fast line and few involving diversion other signals are available,” a CR spokesperson said, as he assured the commuters that the suburban train services would be resumed fully on Friday.