Rail nightmare LIVES ON
Never had I imagined that an express train journey to Mumbai would turn into the most horrendous experience for my family and me. After a 10-day summer excursion in Jammu and Kashmir and Amritsar, around 21 members of my family who were split across three coaches of the Golden Temple Express were returning to Mumbai.
Around 1.30 in the night, as the train was approaching Ambala station, I woke up feeling a tug on my purse. I wasn’t so sure what was happening but realised it when I felt the tug again. Before I knew, a robber snatched the purse and was trying to escape. I jumped off the berth and gave him a good chase right till the door of the bogey. A scuffle ensued as I tried to snatch back my purse and in the process, the thief escaped by jumping off the train. Not before he pulled me along with him even as the train raced forward. Within minutes, my father and elder brother too who were with me during the scuffle jumped from the train in haste. Whatever happened after that is a blur. My father found me in pain lying adjacent to the tracks. I was upset about the thief ’s escape and realised that I probably lost some teeth too. When I mentioned it to my father, with a very heavy heart, he informed me that I had in fact, lost a leg too. It was then it struck me that after falling off the train, one of my legs was crushed under the wheels of the train. If you thought my nightmare ended there, you
are mistaken. It took 45 minutes for help to reach us and during that duration we were languishing near the tracks, careful of trains passing by. While the railway policemen rushed me to a hospital in Ambala, the rest of our family members who were still travelling in the train, unaware of the whole ordeal, were targeted by a ticket checker. The TC asked them for a bribe of `5,000 if they wished to continue their journey, as all the tickets were with my father who had jumped out of the train to help me. The TC even sold nine of our berths thinking that my family members would discontinue our journey.
My father Kiran also fractured his leg when he jumped while my elder brother Rahul suffered minor injuries. Help arrived and I was shifted to a hospital in Chandigarh for treatment.
My family realised by then that though my leg had been amputated, better treatment was the need of the hour and so we were in a hurry to reach Mumbai.
In Chandigarh, my family approached the railway authorities for emergency tickets to Mumbai, but to no avail. My family approached the airlines but the cost was coming to `2 lakh. Dejected over no means available, we hired an ambulance and a car for which we had to shell out `90,000.
Our ordeal has showcased the grim reality of lack of security in the trains in this country. If there was a guard posted in the coach, the tragedy could have been averted. The doors are supposed to be shut at night — a rule as simple as that was not followed. We had to face so many problems after the accident, right from finding a means of transportation to reach Mumbai to getting support from the authorities. I want to know the value of an Indian citizen in the eyes of the government. Now, my family is approaching the railway authorities for compensation. Ye, will some monetary aid help me get back my normal life? Will it make up for the pain that my family has gone through?
The incident has not only left me disabled but later also spoiled my career prospects. I have completed my Masters in Commerce and was planning to pursue B.Ed. All the dreams now lie in shambles, as it will take at least six months for me to recover fully. Then comes the task of finding a prosthetic leg after which I will have to undergo another training session for three months to be able to walk again. My own experience has made me understand the grievances of railway accident victims. Now I know that we don’t have the right mechanism in place to take care of them. After I recover, I will join an NGO to help such accident victims. I believe we need to have a foolproof system in place to provide prompt compensation to railway accident victims. I hope the government will step forward and look into the sufferings that my family has gone through. The accident was tragic enough but the aftermath was a nightmare.
As told to Pratik Salunke