Man’s body travels 900 km undetected in train toilet

POLICE said Thursday (3) they discovered the dead body of a man that had travelled undetected for 900 kilometres (560 miles) across northern India locked inside a train toilet.

They believe the man boarded the train days before it set off from Bihar state and died inside the lavatory after locking the door.

Railway police officer Ram Sahay told AFP they forced the door open on Sunday after passengers complained of the smell.

The Saharsa–Amritsar Jan Sewa Express had by then travelled for nearly 24 hours from its starting point. The entire journey takes 35 hours.

Indian media said the train was delayed for almost five hours while officers tried to check the dead man’s identity with other travellers before the journey to Amritsar was resumed.

‘We still don’t know anything about the man,’ said Sahay, who is posted in Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh state where the grisly discovery was made.

Residents in the capital have been waking up in recent weeks to hazy mornings with the sky a shade of grey.

A thick layer of smog envelops the city in winter as cold, heavy air traps construction dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from crop stubble burning in neighbouring states, causing a surge in respiratory illnesses among its 20 million people.

The air quality index in nearly all monitoring stations in the city was between 300 to 400 or in the ‘very poor’ category on Monday, which experts say leads to respiratory illness on prolonged exposure.

However it was an improvement on last week’s reading of 400-500 in the index, which is described as ‘severe’.

‘Directions for work from home amended and offices functioning at full capacity from today,’ Delhi state environment minister Gopal Rai told reporters.

The central and state governments ordered the closure of primary schools, banned the entry of diesel vehicles carrying non-essential goods and suspended most construction and demolition activity in the national capital region last week.