Bharat Kumar is a victim of the apathy of our fast-paced city. No commuter from the crowded train bothered to report that he had fallen off
Bharat Kumar is a victim of the apathy of our fast-paced city. No commuter from the crowded train bothered to report that he had fallen off
Bharat, horribly maimed but perhaps alive for hours, lay on the trackside till his body was found 14 hours after he fell off a train.
Between 6.30 pm on Thursday and 8.30 am yesterday, lakhs of commuters must've seen the Std IX student lay there. But no one bothered to inform the railways about it.
Even those men who were in the packed compartment with Bharat when he fell did not think it was their duty to let the authorities know about the accident.
Had they immediately dialled 3004000 the railway accident helpline number that's pasted in almost all local train compartments Bharat may have lived.
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No Helping Hands: For 14 hours, Bharat Kumar's body lay in this drain, which is a few metres from Santacruz station. |
Bharat, a student of B L Ruia School in Vile Parle, was on his way to home in Tata Colony, Bandra, on Thursday evening when he fell off the train. When he didn't reach home at 7 pm, his parents got worried.
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His father Kalikant visited his tuition class and his school in Vile Parle, but Bharat was nowhere to be found.
"On my way home from Churchgate, I even got off at every station to inquire whether my son had been picked up for crossing the tracks or travelling without a ticket," said Kalikant.
But with no Bharat, around 10.30 pm, Kalikant registered a missing police complaint at Vile Parle police station.
Early Friday morning, Kalikant even visited hospitals and the Cooper Hospital post mortem centre fearing the worst, but was relieved when the mortuary staff did not find his son's name in their register.
Cops can't find himKalikant had just home when "at 9 am, I received a call from the Bandra railway police", said Kalikant.
"They informed me that they had found Bharat's school bag and that he had been admitted to Cooper Hospital." But there he was informed about Bharat's death.
Kalikant was later told that some commuters had informed the stationmaster at Santacruz about an injured boy lying on the tracks.
The on duty railway police constable and a porter were immediately dispatched, but they couldn't locate the victim.
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DEATH DRAIN: Police look at the spot where Std IX student Bharat Kumar fell off the train and died. |
A few minutes later, the Vile Parle stationmaster received similar information. But by then, a few commuters at Santacruz station alerted the railway police about the boy's exact location.
The police rushed the ambulance parked near Santacruz station, but Bharat was declared dead before admission at Cooper hospital.
There he was identified after hospital authorities looked through his school calendar.
The forensic doctor at Cooper Hospital said Bharat died due to a hemorrhagic shock with multiple injuries.
"My son was lying there for so long, but nobody noticed him. Had the railway police acted on my missing person's complaint, my son may have been alive today," said Kalikant.
64 LakhThe number of Mumbaikars u00a0who travel by local trains u00a0every day
1,800The number of people who died on the railway tracks in the last six months. Sixty per cent of them lost their lives while trying to cross the tracks. The rest fell off the trains
5The number of people who died on the railway tracks on Thursday, the day Bharat died
