Police gives clean chit to railways over FOB stampede

Mumbai: The Dadar police, which is probing the September 29 stampede at the Parel-Elphinstone Road foot overbridge (FOB) in which 23 people died, has given a clean chit to the railways.

The police has not found any negligence on the part of the railway officials. The stampede lasted between eight and 10 minutes after 10.26 am. “In the probe, which was conducted as part of the ADR filed after the tragedy, around 150 persons were questioned including railway and RPF officials and those injured or related to the deceased who came forward to seek compensations,” said assistant commissioner of police Sunil Deshmukh.  

An investigator said, “The unfortunate tragedy that happened was purely an accident. The probe found no negligence on the part of anyone, including railway personnel.”

The investigator said that overcrowding  (10,000 commuters were present on the FOB due to the unexpected rains that day), the prevalence of a 4-8 inch deep water puddle outside the northern side of the FOB, non-observance of ‘lane discipline’ and the commotion due to rumours contributed to the stampede.

Another factor that led to the tragedy was the fact that in the swelling crowd were porters carrying flowers.

 “The flower porters are used to working in rain and did not want to wait. In the commotion, flowers fell and somebody said ‘phool gir gaya’ that was misheard as ‘pul gir gaya’. There were rumours of bridge collapse and short-circuit as well,” he said.  

C. Shivmurat (56), an RPF constable who was at the site stated that he got pushed away by the crowd from the spot — the FOB. He claimed that he had alerted the local railway officials at 10.30 am that “the crowd was swelling”. His mobile phone’s records and CCTV footage recovered from the FOB corroborated his claims.

Had the police found any negligence in the case, it would have registered a fresh case under sections related to culpable homicide not amounting to homicide or negligence causing death, said sources.