Three railway staffers run over by local train near Mumbai while fixing signal fault

Mumbai, Jan 23 (PTI) Three railway staffers were killed after being run over by a Mumbai-bound local train near Vasai town in Palghar district when they were engaged in the task of fixing a signalling system fault, officials said on Tuesday.

The incident occurred at 8.55 pm on Monday between Vasai Road and Naigaon stations when the local was going towards Churchgate terminus in south Mumbai, they said.

The Western Railway (WR), under whose Mumbai division the accident occurred, said it was an unfortunate incident, and ordered a probe into it.

The deceased were identified as chief signalling inspector Vasu Mitra, electrical signalling maintainer Somnath Uttam Lambutre and helper Sachin Wankhede. All these staffers were from the signalling department of the WR's Mumbai division, he said.

They had gone to attend signalling point issues that had failed on Monday evening when they were run over by a Churchgate-bound local train on the slow line, it said.

WR's Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of the Mumbai division and other senior railway officials rushed to the site and extended all assistance to the family members of the deceased, it said.

The bodies of the victims were sent to a government hospital for post-mortem, and a case of accidental death was registered, a Government Railway Police (GRP) official said.

The authorities have paid Rs 55,000 each to the family members of the three deceased as immediate relief, they said.

Further ex-gratia and other payments will be disbursed to the families of the deceased within 15 days, the WR said.

The families of Lambutre and Wankhede will receive approximately Rs 40 lakh each, while Mitra's kin will receive around Rs 1.24 crore in addition to their settlement dues, it said in a statement. PTI DC KK NP