At least 22 people were killed and several others were injured in a stampede that took place on a foot overbridge (FOB) linking Elphinstone Road and Parel suburban railway stations in Mumbai this morning.
What is noteworthy is the fact that daily commuters were anticipating something disastrous to happen on this FOB in view of the overcrowding at peak hours. They had repeatedly alerted the administration to take corrective measures to avoid any untoward incident. However, all such pleas fell on deaf ears.
Just two days back, senior journalist Santosh Andhale had requested Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to take steps to tackle overcrowding on this FOB.
Andhale, senior Editor with mymedicalmantra.com who earlier worked with DNA and Mumbai Mirror, posted a tweet with a photo of the overcrowded FOB on 27 September 2017 . Andhale tagged Piyush Goyal in his tweet and requested him to take corrective measures. He had also tagged Western Railway in the tweet.
Western Railway responded to the tweet of Andhale and asked him to specify the location which Andhale did. The Western Railway informed Andhale that the matter has been forwarded to Central Railway.
However, a tragedy took place on the FOB before the Central Railway could take necessary steps to avert any accident. The system waited for a common man to inform it of the overcrowding on an important FOB but it could not prevent the tragedy that cost 27 innocent lives.
