Woman booked for ‘causing chaos’ after late arrival of local

Central Railways’ Railway Protection Force (RPF) has booked Shinde under sections 145, 146, 147, 155 and 174 of the Railway Act for creating nuisance, obstructing a railway servant from performing his duty, and entering railway premise/ section without lawful permission

DIVA: A swarm of irate commuters descended on the tracks at Diva station on Wednesday morning driven by twin crises – the suburb’s first CSMT-bound fast local had arrived 28 minutes late from Khopoli and its entry to the designated platform (4) was changed to platform number 2, where slow trains pull in, at the last moment. The train left Khopoli at 4:50 am and reached Diva at 6:23 am.

Woman booked for ‘causing chaos’ after late arrival of local

This led to chaos within the swelling crowd. To cut through the disorder, a 30-year-old lab technician, Deepika Shinde, climbed into the motorman’s cabin, to ask him to hold the train for a while longer so that more commuters could board and faced action for breaking the law.

“The train started and later halted a few meters away from the platform. There was no way for me to get down without help. Railway officials didn’t even have women constables at that time, and no one wanted to hear my side of the story,” said Shinde, who was booked under various sections of the Railways Act for boarding the motorman cabin.

She travels to Chembur for work daily. She starts her day in office at 7:10 am and checks out at 8pm. Three delays in her biometric punching leads to a day’s salary cut. “This train is late every single day. How can we manage and how many times can we request our office to give us a concession? I have suffered salary cuts several times,” she said.

“We were all on platform number 4. Some people crossed the track, but not all women can cross over effortlessly, so soon after the announcement. Who will be responsible if anyone gets hurt while crossing the track? The railway administration looks upon us like insects, assuming that we can get into crowded trains within seconds,” she added.

Central Railways’ Railway Protection Force (RPF) has booked Shinde under sections 145, 146, 147, 155 and 174 of the Railway Act for creating nuisance, obstructing a railway servant from performing his duty, and entering railway premise/ section without lawful permission. Apart from Shinde, four others were booked under section 145 of the Act. Shinde was later escorted into a ladies’ compartment of the train.

An RPF officer said, “Five women commuters were brought for questioning from Kurla (where Shinde and the others were asked to get down) to Diva, of which two women -- Sarika Kamble and Deepika Shinde -- were found to have a major role in creating the nuisance because of which they were booked.” Kamble did not climb on to the motorman’s cabin, but joined Shinde in requesting the motorman to halt the train for a while longer.

As Shinde was in the motorman’s cabin, the train was detained at Diva station from 6.52am until 7.05am. Railway officials said the earlier delay was caused due to a chain pulling incident in a long-distance train at Badlapur.

Railway commuter union member, Lata Argade said such “last minute change of platforms is not new here”. “This is the first fast train that office officegoers take every day – and it is hard to juggle between platforms at the last minute. Why can’t railway administration inform in advance when a train changes the track. Also, if they cannot do that, they should at least allow a few more minutes for commuters to board,” said Argade.

Shivraj Manaspure, Chief PRO, Central Railway denied that the commuters were “protesting the delay”. “They were passing through the level crossing gate and watching the incident as the woman entered the motorman’s cabin.”

The rail passengers unanimously blamed CR’s poor planning and complained that the new platforms at Diva station were lying unused. Diva residents have had a long pending demand to start a few locals from Diva to ease travel.