Forced to footboard-travel, 3 dead, 20 injured in CR mishap

Brimming local trains during peak hours are a common sight in Mumbai Space is at a premium and travelling on footboards and rooftops is considered matter of course The last few days however have been trying for even the most seasoned commuters particularly on Central Railway CR though the cascading effect hasnrsquot left the Western line untouched either Since 1 am on Wednesday when a major fire gutted the main signal cabin at Kurla station services on CR have taken a massive hit And now bodies have started showing up at railway authoritiesrsquo doorstep Three people were killed and at least 20 were injured yesterday morning after a mishap occurred on a CSTbound Badlapur local near Mulund station Fatal blow Passengers allege that they were hit by an electrical box on a signal pole erected in close proximity to the tracks PICSSayed Sameer Abedi The train scheduled to reach platform no 4 of Mulund station at 849 am arrived at 910 am packed to capacity Still passengers who had been waiting impatiently at Mulund pushed and shoved in a desperate attempt to board Many of them had to be content with managing to grab some space on the footboard and hang on for dear life As the train started to pick up speed passengers allege they were hit by an electrical box on a signal pole erected in close proximity to the tracks Dead Jiten Varau00a0 Big hit Most of the passengers who had their upper bodies hanging outwards were struck on their left many of them fell off the train due to the impact The percussion proved fatal for Pratik Chheda 30 Ganesh Yadav 23 and Jiten Vara 25 Chandramani Tiwari an airconditioning technician working for the railways was one of the commuters injured in the incident sustaining a fracture to his left elbow Injured Body blow Chandramani Tiwari an airconditioning technician working for the railways fractured his left elbow in the mishap Narendra Balkhande left and Rahul Singh coworkers were also injured in the incident ldquoThe train was very crowded in the morning and a lot of people were hanging from the footboard due to lack of spacerdquo he narrated adding ldquoI was travelling in the bogie after the first ladies compartment As the train left Mulund at around 9 am it accelerated While I was trying to push myself inwards and away from the footboard I was suddenly struck on the left armrdquo Sachin Shetty a banker was travelling to CST to attend an important meeting He narrowly escaped with his life He said ldquoI had already missed work the previous day due to the unavailability of trains but I had a meeting on Thursday Just after boarding the train at Mulund I felt an object strike me a severe blow and I was about to fall off the train Luckily I was travelling with a friend who with the aid of another passenger immediately pulled me back in He saved my liferdquo Rakesh Yadav Sachinrsquos friend said ldquoAfter seeing Sachin bleeding I realised he was wounded and pulled him inside the compartment We reached Vikhroli station where I along with four other people who had been injured lodged a complaint with the station master and advised him to discontinue services along that line as other trains could also have been at riskrdquo No relief Sachin recounted the horrors he faced at Vikhroli station ldquoAt Vikhroli we received first aid and were told that an ambulance had been sent for from Rajawadi Hospital We waited for what seemed like 20 minutes to no avail Finally when the pain became unbearable we decided to arrange for our own transport and went to Rajawadi by rickshawrdquo he said But his ordeal did not end there ldquoEven as we reached Rajawadi we were told that the Xray machines were not functioning and we would have to get them done from outside I was in excruciating pain and had not been given a temporary plaster or even painkillers After getting my Xrays done we came back to Rajawadi where preliminary treatment was finally administered to merdquo Sachin had suffered a compound fracture to his right arm and decided to seek further medical assistance at a private hospital Another duo Rahul Singh 26 and Narendra Balkhande 24 coworkers faced similar circumstances when the former was hit by the signal pole Despite travelling in the last bogie of the train they did not notice anything happening in the compartments ahead Rahul said ldquoIt all happened so fast that I cannot recount the details of what happened I was in shock after getting hitrdquo Narendra said ldquoRahul and I were on the footboard with our left arms out of the train gripping the top I saw the pole approaching but since it was a fast train there was no time to react As Rahul was hit first he lost balance and started to fall I immediately grabbed onto him and pulled him back insiderdquo Like others Rahul too sustained a fracture to the left arm while Narendra suffered a small cutAlso among the injured was a Western Railway TC 35yearold Shailesh Kamble Kamble too was travelling on the footboard of the BadlapurCST train and was admitted to Parakh Hospital in Ghatkopar A relative of Kamble said ldquoShailesh was travelling as a civilian on his way to Dadar He performs his duties at Vile Parle station and was on the way to work when the incident took place He has been injured on the left elbow and will have to undergo surgery tomorrow at Parakh Hospital in Ghatkopar where he has been admittedrdquo More blood on the tracks At around 645 pm Hussain Shaikh who was standing on top of a Bhayandar local got electrocuted as the train entered platform 4 at Bandra station Power was briefly shut down in order to remove him from the overhead cables that supply 25000 volts current Shaikh was admitted to Bhabha Hospital with 80 per cent burn injuries A 21yearold hawker came under the wheels of a suburban train as the train snaked its way to platform 1 at CST station yesterday Mukesh Kale who was trying to latch on to the door of the moving train while trying to board a compartment at around 730 pm missed it and fell in the gap between two coaches and on to the tracks He was run over by the train ldquoHe was taken to St George Hospital but succumbed to his injuriesrdquo said S Deshmukh senior police inspector GRP CST He used to sell wares at Gateway of India and used to stay in the slums nearbyu00a0