Another sure recipe for disaster

Elphinstone stampede spectre returns to haunt commuters after Delisle bridge closure

Hundreds of jittery Mumbaikars, who negotiated an extremely rickety and narrow Datta Ahire Marg bridge for exiting from Lower Parel railway station in peak hour, were nagged by memories of the Elphinstone Road stampede, in which 23 persons lost their lives. This ordeal was thrust upon them after the Delisle overbridge was closed by the Western Railways for repair.

Seething with anger, Rajesh Khillari, a commuter, said, “WR should not have closed the entire bridge, as it created chaos at Datta Ahire Marg, which is the only option left for everyone to exit.” For crowd management, Western Railway

had deployed the Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police and the Maharashtra Security Force at the site. But it is anybody’s guess how they would have coped with a stampede, were one to take place. Of course, the WR, to its credit, sensing the morning rush at the north FOB, immediately tried to segregate the crowd and direct it to the south FOB, but it made things even more chaotic.

The Delisle overbridge, built in 1921, was declared unsafe on July 17 after a joint inspection by the Western Railway, the civic body and experts from IIT-Bombay. An inspection of all such railway bridges across the city is being conducted following the collapse of the Gokhale overbridge in Andheri, following heavy rains on July 3.