697 commuters died after falling off trains this year. An RTI query has revealed that the number of deaths due to victims falling from local trains has gone up in the last decade. In 2005, 494 people died after falling from local trains, and the toll this year has already reached 697 (till November 20).

Nov 29 2015 : Mirror (Mumbai)

697 commuters died after falling off trains this year

Kamal Mishra TWEETS @KMMIRROR





More people are losing lives after falling off packed trains compared to 10 yrs ago

An RTI query has revealed that the number of deaths due to victims falling from local trains has gone up in the last decade. In 2005, 494 people died after falling from local trains, and the toll this year has already reached 697 (till November 20).The worst year in terms of such casualties was 2013, when 901 people died after falling from trains. It was an increase of 82% as compared to the death toll in 2005, said RTI activist Anis Khan, quoting a reply received from Government Railway Police (GRP).
Questions are being raised about the commuters' safety, the local trains' capacity, and the railways' ability to respond quickly to an emergency, after a 21-year-old Dombivili resident fell off a crowded CST-bound local during the peak hours on Friday, resulting in his death.
The pictures above are grabs of a video recorded by another commuter in the second class compartment, in which the victim, Bhavesh Nakate, was desperately trying to get a foothold.
Khan said that the railway administration has failed to provide a safe and comfortable journey to the people. Most passengers who fall or slip from the running trains are struggling to get inside the compartment, just like Nakate. “The victims lose their grip and fall off, or get dashed against a pole near the railway track,“ Khan said.
As per the statistics provided under the RTI query, 7,686 people died after falling off trains in the last 10 years, while more than 22,000 were killed while crossing the tracks.
Activists said that the suburban railway network was on the “verge of a collapse“. Transport expert Ketan Goradia said, “A local train's capacity is around 1,700 people, and during the rush hours, it carries around 5,000 commuters. You can imagine the plight of the commuters. It's a miracle that people don't die of suffocation inside the compartments.“
A senior Western Railway official said that the railways were doing “everything possible“ to provide a comfortable transport, but “beating the population explosion was beyond anyone's control“. “If you compare the Mumbai suburban train network with its counterparts across the world, you'll see that we cater to the most number of people,“ the official said.
The commuters and experts, however, said that the railways could have done a lot more. “The system needs an overhaul. Signalling, station and platform layouts, track maintenance, converting all 12coach trains into 15-coach trains...obviously, the railways have a lot of work to do,“ said PC Sahagal, former MD of the Mumbai Rail Vikas Nigam.

WR motorman stops train in the nick of time, saves depressed woman Scared because her parents wanted to take her to a psychiatrist, she ran away and jumped in front of a train

Mumbai Mirror Bureau mirrorfeedback@timesgroup.com TWEETS @_MumbaiMirror 

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    An alert motorman saved the life of a 20-year-old woman who had jumped in front of a train at Mahalaxmi station on Friday morning. Shabra Banu, who suffers from depression, tried to commit suicide but survived with minor injuries after the motorman applied the brakes just in time. 
    “Shabra ran away from her Worli residence just before her parents were about to take her to a psychiatrist at Nagpada,” said Rajendra Trivedi, Government Railway Police (GRP) inspector, Mumbai Central. When her parents realised she was missing, they panicked and filed a missing complaint at Worli police station and searched for her everywhere. 
    Meanwhile, a scared Shabra made her way to Mahalaxmi station and jumped on to the tracks just as a Churchgate-bound train pulled in at 9.15 am. “The motorman promptly applied the emergency brakes and the train stopped even before it could reach her,” said a Western Railway (WR) official. 
    As a crowd gathered at the spot, Shabra became nervous and refused to speak. GRP personnel rushed her to Nair Hospital for treatment of bruises she had sustained. “At the hospital, Shabra went into a shell. A police team tried speaking to her, but she would just not tell us anything. As Shabra had no identification on her, we were clueless for several hours,” said Trivedi. 
    Later, after she had been given medication, Shabra regained composure and told GRP personnel her name and address, who then informed her parents. “We are lucky that she survived. We were praying that she was okay when we were informed about what happened,” said Shabra’s father Ishraul Haq Ansari. 
    According to Ansari, the family had spent the last few days convincing Shabra to meet the doctors at Daud Hospital in Nagpada. “She was scared of meeting doctors for an evaluation. We kept convincing her that it was for her own good. And just as we thought she was okay, Shabra ran away,” Ansari said, adding that his daughter, who is a Std 6 drop-out, would hardly venture out of home. Police are still trying to figure how she managed to make her way to Mahalaxmi station on her own. 
    At Nair Hospital, Shabra was treated on an OPD basis for her injuries and underwent an Xray and CT scan, which ruled out internal injuries. She was then sent home with her relatives. 
    WR officials could not be reached to confirm the identity of the motorman who saved her.

Shabra jumped on to the tracks just as a Churchgate-bound train pulled in at 9.15 am