Woman Dies After Drunk Ticket Checker Pushes Her Off Moving Train

A woman in India has died after allegedly being pushed off a train by a ticket checker.

The incident happened in the city of Jalgaon in the western Indian state of Maharashtra early Thursday morning. According to The Times Of India, the woman was attempting to board the Mumbai – Rajendranagar Express as the train was gradually departing the station. She also had her 10-year-old daughter with her, also trying to board the train in a hurry. The woman was on her way to her hometown, Khandwa.

However, she chose the wrong compartment to board, as it was a higher class air conditioned bogie, and not the “General,” second-class compartment for which she had bought tickets. Since the train was already leaving, all she wanted to do was to somehow board the train and later go to the General coach when the train stops at the next station.

However, the coach of the AC compartment was manned by the ticket checker who did not allow the woman to board the train. When the train gathered speed, she once again made an attempt to board it. It was during this second attempt that the ticket checker pushed the woman away. The woman slipped and to the dismay of onlookers, fell in to the gap between the train and the platform. Even though people pulled the alarm chain, a mechanism used to stop the train by passengers during an emergency, she had already been crushed under the wheels.

Later identified as 38-year-old Ujjwala Pandey, the woman died on the spot. Meanwhile, passengers and bystanders who had seen it all unfold were irate and began to look for the ticket checker who had by then ran away and hid inside the pantry car of the train. A crowd of people eventually found him and handed him over to the local railway police.

The ticket checker has been identified as Sampat Salunkhe. According to a complaint filed by a relative of the dead woman, the ticket checker was in an inebriated state at the time of the accident. Police are checking if this indeed is true. The ticket checker also was allegedly thrashed by the angry mob.

The ticket checker has been booked under section 304 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) which deals with punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Medical tests have been conducted on him to check if he indeed was drunk at the time of the incident.

The incident comes days after a major train accident killed over 40 people in the country and as a new government takes over the reins of India.

[Image via Rahul Srinivas/The Inquisitr]