India: Mumbai woman dies while fighting mobile thief on train

Mumbai: In a shocking incident, a young woman and mother of three daughters was pushed off a running train and killed while fighting with a mobile thief, officials said here on Tuesday.

The incident happened on Saturday around 7.45pm near the Kalwa suburban station on the Central Railway when the woman, Vidya D. Patil, 35, was returning home from her office in Andheri.

According to her brother-in-law Kamalakar Patil, it was her fourth day at work after she was on maternity leave for six months.

According to Thane Government Railway Police (GRP) officials, Patil had boarded the train from Kurla for her home in Dombivali west, where she lived in Chinchodyacha Pada locality.

Just as the train started leaving Kalwa station, a man jumped inside the ladies’ compartment, grabbed her mobile phone and rushed to the door to jump out on the platform.

Not willing to give up, she lunged after him and caught his collar. But he pushed her while escaping, and she fell in the gap between the train and the platform and was run over.

The entire incident lasted barely 10 seconds, giving no time to two other stunned women commuters inside the compartment to react or help.

Patil is survived by her husband Dnyaneshwar, who is an electrical contractor, three daughters - Purva, 9, Megha, 6 and Pari who is 6 months old - besides an aged mother-in-law Indubai Patil, a grieving Kamlakar Patil said.

Moving swiftly, the GRP scanned CCTV footage and managed to nab the thief, identified as Faisal Jameel Sheikh, 31, from his hideout in the nearby Mumbra town.

Having several past cases of theft or robbery against him, Sheikh was produced before a court and remanded to police custody till June 4.

The GRP has lodged offences of theft, culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other sections of the Indian Railways Act against the arrested-accused and is probing further.

The Patils have sought to know why there was no security on board the train given the late evening hour when barely a handful of women commuters travel in suburban trains.

“Moreover, when the trains are allowed for only people in essential services, how did the thief manage to gain entry to the station premises, complete the nefarious deed and managed to escape? Is there a nexus?” asked Kamlakar Patil.

The family has demanded the most stringent punishment for the accused to serve as an example to others.

The distraught Patil family has organised her post-funeral rituals on June 8 and 11, but have appealed to all not to visit them for condolences in view of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Meanwhile, several railway association members and activists have demanded adequate compensation for the Patils from the Indian Railways since the incident happened on the railway premises due to its own lapses, and there were demands on social media to provide for the future of the three minor daughters of Vidya Patil.