Telangana: Techie falls off train to fend off phone thief, dies

WARANGAL: A 25-year-old man died in a fall from a train he was travelling in, after allegedly being hit with a stick by mobile phone thieves, in an incident at Bibinagar onboard the Satavahana Express on Thursday,

The deceased was identified as Muppu Srikanth, a native of Nerella village in Kamalapur mandal in Hanamkonda. He worked as a software engineer with a leading IT company in Hyderabad, the police said.

The police said the victim was travelling to his native place to celebrate the Tholi Ekadashi festival. When the train reached Bibinagar, Srikanth was standing near the door with his phone in his hand, when a thief hit him in a bid to make him drop the phone.

However, while trying to protect his phone, Srikanth slipped and fell, going under the wheels of the train. He died on the spot, the police said, and the thief fled the spot.

The police rushed to the spot and shifted the body to the government area hospital in Bhongir.

Huzurabad BJP MLA Etala Rajendar visited the hospital to console the victim’s family members and urged the police to immediately ramp up measures to prevent such incidents.