INFANT DIES ‘DUE TO HEAT’ IN TRAIN, PASSENGERS CREATE RUCKUS

ALLAHABAD: A five-month-old child died in a sleeper coach of the Dibrugarh-New Delhi Brahmaputra Mail allegedly due to excessive heat on Friday, passengers of the train said. As per Met officials, Allahabad was on Friday reeling under temperature of 45.5 degrees Celsius.

The passengers said the train halted on the outer of Allahabad Junction for one and half hours, following which the condition of the already ill child deteriorated. The passengers then created a ruckus, alleging negligence by railway officials.

The train was already over nine hours late before it reached Mirzapur station. It again halted on the outer section of Allahabad Junction for around one and half hours. It is alleged that the condition of the infant child of one Mohammad, a resident of Kaimur (Bhabua) district of Bihar, travelling in S-8 coach, deteriorated.

Railway officials claimed that doctors at the railway hospital were sent to the coach when the train arrived at the junction but the family had by then already left for Dufferin hospital, where the doctors declared the child dead on arrival. The family then left for Mughalsarai by road.

The officials claimed that they reacted as soon as they came to know of the child’s illness.

“The child was in a non-AC coach, so there was no issue of cooling/AC failure. The train was not ‘detained’ on the ‘outer’ as is being alleged. The entire route was affected by bunching caused due to heavy storm last night,” railway officials added.