Mumbai: With Diwali and Chhath Puja round the corner, the crowd at railway stations is on rise as people are hurrying to their home-destination for celebrations. Due to the increased ramp up in travel rush,”
A tragic incident occurred at Mumbai’s Bandra railway station on Platform 1 when nine passengers were hurt in a stampede, out of which two are in critical condition.
As per the Mumbai civic body the BMC, the stampede happened when people rushed to board the train number 22921 to Gorakhpur. Because of large turn up the station infrastructure to hold the people was inadequate and this instigated the stampede. Bandra’s Bhabha Hospital admitted all the injured passengers where seven are in stable condition, but the two are still critical.
Accusations of Organising Management Strategy Deficiency
The railway authorities came under fire after the incident and people said that the lack of capacity control on the platform led to the situation. A few Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel tried to control the crowd but failed because everybody rushed forward as soon as the train came closer to the platform. As you will hear the surviving passengers, and the reporters that first interviewed them, there are graphic accounts of passengers trying at first to get on the compartments and get to the train: shoving and pulling each other and, as they frantically jam in, reason tearing at clothes and scattering effects. When the ruckus subsided, blood stain on the platform showed just how severe the hurt were.
Action taken by Western Railway towards the Incident
He spoke about the circumstances that led to the incident, while Western Railway Chief Public Relations Officer (CRPO) Vineet Abhishek was briefing the gathering. He said the Bandra-Gorakhpur train, 22921, is a general, unreserved coach train. As people travel frequently during the holiday period, railway authorities park the train on the platform two to three hours in anticipation of passengers on board. Besides, as the train approached the platform passengers started to rush in and since this was a small station with few services, this precipitated the rather sad occurrence of a stampede.
Continuing on the same, Abhishek also shared the positive measures taken by the western railways pointing out that more number of holiday special trains have been planned this year than last year. Of these, 87 special trains originating from Mumbai have been routined off to other parts of the country to ease traffic on the festive times.