Victims’ relatives in shock; two injured on life support

On Thursday morning, when four people fell off a CST-bound train, between Sion and Matunga, people living and working near Dharavi’s Dhobighat rushed to help them. But they were unaware that one of their neighbours, 16-year-old Satish Merawala, was one of the injured.

On Thursday morning, when four people fell off a CST-bound train, between Sion and Matunga, people living and working near Dharavi’s Dhobighat rushed to help them. But they were unaware that one of their neighbours, 16-year-old Satish Merawala, was one of the injured.

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“Merawala’s face was partially disfigured. I saw a tattoo on his forearm and recognised him. We then took him to the hospital,” said Jagdish Nanti, a resident.

Merawala, who succumbed to his injuries around 12.30pm, was to appear for his SSC re-examinations in Parel. He had boarded the train from Sion.

“After he failed his SSC exam, I had told him we should return to our village Renigunta in Tirupati. But he wanted to join a college so we stayed back,” said Merawala’s father, Kayappa.

Another commuter, Kedar Yadav, 25, also succumbed to extensive head injuries around 1:15pm. Yadav, who worked as a labourer at a construction site, was on his way to Dadar. “He had suffered multiple traumatic injuries. His ribs were severely fractured,” said Dr Rajeev Singh, assistant dean, Sion hospital.

Doctors at the hospital said two other passengers, Zia Ansari, 26, and Uday Sharma, 31, were brought in a critical state and are on ventilator support.

“It appears that the victims fell on each other causing more damage,” said Dr Suleman Merchant, dean, Sion Hospital.

Ansari, who works as an electrician, and his brother Samsad Alam boarded the train from Mumbra. “I got off at Kurla. The train was packed,” said Alam. “My brother had been boarding the 7:56am train for the past two years. We never thought something like this could happen.”

Meanwhile, Sharma’s relatives are clueless as to what he was doing in the train. “He works as a security guard and had left on Wednesday evening for his night shift,” said his brother.

Sharma, a resident of Kalyan, has suffered a degloving injury, a type of avulsion in which an extensive section of skin is completely torn off the underlying tissue, severing its blood supply. A team of surgeons operated on him, but his condition is still critical.