53-year-old dies of heart attack while in queue for hours
Deepak Shah worked for a Bhuleshwar-based private jewellery firm. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Mumbai: There seems to be no respite for the common man from the woes and panic triggered by the cash crunch following last week’s demonetisation of two high-denomination notes by the Centre. A 53-year-old man died of suspected heart attack on Wednesday while standing in queue for nearly two and a half hours to exchange old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at a bank in Bhayandar, Thane.
The deceased, Deepak Purshottamdas Shah, got in the queue outside the Bassein Catholic Co-operative Bank Limited around 7 am and collapsed around 9.30 am, suffering a heart attack, the police said. He resided in a third-floor flat at Shree Pal Building in Devchand Nagar of Bhayandar (west). Shah worked for a Bhuleshwar-based private jewellery firm. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
According to the police, Shah was first rushed to the local clinic of a general practitioner but was later taken to the privately-run Shraddha Hospital, where he was declared “brought dead”.
Although officials of the bank concerned claimed ignorance about it, a security guard who had witnessed Shah collapsing in the queue was allegedly stopped from giving details to mediapersons by a man suspected to be a staffer.
When The Asian Age contacted the deceased’s family, one of his relatives, who identified himself as Rasik Bhai did not blame anyone for the tragedy. He, however, confirmed that Shah had gone to the bank for exchanging his old currencies and suffered a severe heart attack while standing in the queue.
When contacted by The Asian Age, Bhayander police station’s police inspector Rajendra Kamble said, “No complaint related to the incident has been received by the police. But we have been informed about the incident and our officers are verifying the entire sequence of events leading to it. ”
Last week, a senior citizen had died after suffering a heart attack while standing in a queue outside State Bank of India’s Navghar branch, Mulund (east).
Vishwanath Vartak (73), a retired public works department (PWD) employee, who was standing in a serpentine queue to exchange his old currency notes outside a bank in Mulund (east), collapsed and died around 1.30 pm on Friday.