Portion of CR wall collapses, 4 hurt
MUMBAI : Four people suffered injuries after a 25-feet-long portion of a railway boundary wall of Kurla station collapsed on Friday morning. The incident occurred at 9.45am.
While railway authorities blamed the hawkers for the wall collapse, commuter activists blamed the railways and raised questions about the joint safety inspection of the station, conducted after last year’s Prabhadevi station stampede.
CR informed that the four injured are identified as Laxman Patil, 50, Lakhan Khatal, 29, Mohammad Pantoji, 30, and Amir Kasim Khan, 59. They were rushed to Bhabha hospital. From there, Khan, who suffered face injuries, has been shifted to KEM hospital.
The 10-feet-high wall was located behind the station premises near the escalator, on platform number one of Kurla station. CR claimed that the hawkers used the outer face of this brick masonry wall for hanging their goods through nails and hooks. “The wall was made weak by indiscriminate drilling of thick nails and hooks in the wall. In addition, there are two old peepal trees near the wall. Some of its roots also entered the wall, which may have weakened the wall further,” said a CR spokesperson.
The mishap irked the activists, who questioned the joint safety audit of the railways and other authorities. A joint team of different authorities including CR, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Government Railway Police and others, had conducted the safety audit of all suburban stations including Kurla, after the Prabhadevi station stampede that had claimed 23 lives, in October 2017.
“Thankfully, there were fewer people at the time of the mishap. If the joint inspection team had surveyed the entire station, why they did not find the collapsed wall unsafe then?” questioned Subhash Gupta, a member of the Yatri Sangha, a passenger organisation in Kurla.
Local Member of Legislative Assembly, Mangesh Kudalka, had also pointed out to the CR about the deteriorating condition of the protection wall in June 2017. Kudalkar had warned the railway authorities on the condition of the wall and had asked them to undertake repairs on priority, to avert mishaps.
Resident said that the location where the wall collapsed is used by drug addicts and pedlars. Drug addicts sit there during afternoon and late at night, and make it difficult for women commuters to travel.
A lady passenger said, “People urinate near the area where the wall collapsed. Railways have done nothing to maintain the area. We are worried to take the route because drug pedlars have made it their haven.”