I am alive – Ghatkopar resident trying to tell all he is still around

“I am alive” is what Imran Shaikh (35) has been emphatically telling all his relatives and friends who have been constantly calling, messaging and visiting him since the Elphinstone overbridge stampede. Shaikh's picture was initially carried by a media group and inadvertently printed on the banner placed outside Elphinstone Bridge wherein he was identified as one of the 23 victims of the tragedy.

When Shaikh informed Divisional Railway Manager Mukul Jain about the misunderstanding, he said, “I will ask my police officials to check it out.”

Shaikh frequently took the bridge along with his uncle Mehmood Masood Alam who died in the stampede, but he happened to be at Dadar station on the fateful day. “We used to travel together to our workplaces but the day the stampede took place I was held up due to some work and could not join him. Both stations are convenient but my workplace is closer to Dadar. So, that particular day, I got down at Dadar while my uncle (Alam) chose to go from Parel,” said Shaikh.

Alam was one of the 23 victims who got stuck in the stampede and died of suffocation and internal injuries at KEM Hospital. “I met a lot of media persons who enquired about my uncle and requested me to share his picture. The only picture I had was the one in which both of us are together, and I specially told them to not to get confused about who is who,” Shaikh added.

Some of the tabloids also picked up the news and printed his picture as one of the deceased along with his uncle; the local TV channels also reported the same.

“Some of my friends later informed me that a banner has been put up outside the bridge, paying homage to the victims, which also carries my name and picture. I received a lot of calls and messages, People have been coming to meet me, thinking I am no more,” Shaikh added.

While the media houses corrected their mistake in subsequent reports, Shaikh had no idea what to do about the banner. “It has been printed by some local politician and I don’t know whom to contact about it. So, I decided to get in touch with the western or the central railway authorities,” Shaikh said.