Chennai: A 17-year-old ITI student died of head injuries sustained when he hit a concrete pole by the side of the EMU train track between Irumbuliyur and Tambaram Monday morning. He was travelling while precariously hanging out from the crowded door area of the EMU at peak hour time of 9 am, police said.
They said Arul Kumar, first-year student at the Guindy ITI, met with his fatal accident shortly after boarding the Chengalpet-Chennai Beach Fast EMU at Oorapakkam, where he lived with his family of meager means. n Full report on P3
He was rushed to the Rajiv Gandhi GH with severe injuries in the head and elsewhere in the body, and died a couple of hours later, police said.
A second similar mishap took place a short time later in the same Chengalpet-Tambaram sector. And in this tragic case too, the young victims were hanging onto the heavily crowded doorway of the Chengalpattu-Beach Fast EMU. While one of them had his left foot cut off below the knee, another suffered a bad hit to the head and fainted.
According to police, at 9.23 a.m., the heavily crowded EMU Chengalpattu was just nearing the Tambaram station, when the bag strapped to the shoulder of Dinesh, 23, hit the pole by the side of the track and he was thrown out. The youth, hailing from MGR Nagar in Chengalpattu and working in a private company in Chennai, lost his leg from knee downwards and was rushed to the RGGH heavily bleeding. He has been admitted in the ICU where his condition is causing concern due to heavy blood loss.
Another passenger, Arul Pandian, 25, also hanging out precariously at the same doorway, lost his grip due to the impact of Dinesh’s bag hitting the pole and fell off the train. He suffered head injuries and was rushed to the ICU at the RGGH.
It may be recalled that seven passengers lost their lives in similar manner in July last year at St Thomas Mount EMU station, when they were hanging out of the doorway of the Beach-Tirumalpur (near Kancheepuram) and got crushed by the concrete railing close to the track of the speeding train. The railways closed down that track following that gruesome mishap and reopened it only recently after widening the gap between the track and the concrete barricade.
“That was just a cosmetic and hugely inadequate action taken by the railways to make it appear that the solution was achieved by merely increasing the gap between the track and the barricade, whereas the sure and permanent solution would be to increase the number of EMUs to handle the growing traffic. That would prevent this dangerous travel hanging by the doorway”, said a retired government engineer living close to the Tambaram train station.
“I have bought a first-class season ticket for my son to ensure his safe travel to college in the city. Even this compartment is crowded and he travels standing most of the time; but at least, he is not forced to hang out of the doorway”, he said.
