Mumbai: Monkey Hill railway station witnessed two deaths on Monday. First, a monkey got electrocuted, affecting rail traffic in the Pune division of Central Railway (CR).
The incident occurred at 9.54 am and services were restored not before around 10.24 am. Later at about 1.40pm, the ill-fated station saw a boulder falling on the tracks, killing one gangman and injuring three others, all of whom had gathered there to have their lunch. All of this delayed the Sahyadri Express for half-an-hour.
Officials said that the Pune-Mumbai section has three rail lines and the trains were diverted onto the remaining two. An official on condition of anonymity said, “The monkey caused a delay of 30 minutes and then the boulder also caused a delay of 15 minutes.”
Worse still, gangman Chandra Kumar Pathak died after being crushed by the boulder while the other gangman Kundan Kumar and two contractual labourers Sandeep and Jagan were injured.
RPF senior divisional security commissioner Sachin Bhalode said, “Yes, a gangman lost his life and we have taken the rest to the hospital but the train was running on the other two lines in the meantime.”
Pune-Mumbai is one of the busiest inter-city sections between Mumbai and any other city.
Seventy per cent of the passengers are pass holders who travel for work to Mumbai.
