By IANS
Mumbai/Surat : At least 16 people, believed to be labourers from Uttar Pradesh, were crushed to death by a train in Udhna town of Gujarat’s Surat district, officials said.
The accident occurred at Kankrakhadi in Udhna, about two kilometres from Surat, at about 11:00 p.m. Wednesday.
Divisional Railway Minister Satya Prakash told IANS that 16 bodies were recovered from the site of the accident. Eleven of them were strewn across the track and five were in a ditch below.
He said the tickets found from the luggage showed that those killed had boarded the Varanasi to Surat Tapti-Ganga Express from Manikpur.
After getting off the train at Udhana station, the people were walking on the railway track when they were run over by a train.
“They got off the Taptiganga Express at Udhana station and were walking on the tracks,” said S.M. Patel, a railway spokesperson.
The driver of the Flying Rani, a train running from Mumbai to Surat, spotted the dead bodies and informed railway authorities.
Railway officials and police reached the spot by 1 a.m. Thursday.
“The driver of another train informed us. No one is allowed to walk on the tracks, this was unauthorised trespassing,” Police Inspector Bhargav Pandaya said.
The police found a diary bearing the name of Ram Bahu Paskar from Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh among the bodies. The authorities believe all of those dead were labourers from the northern state.
Officials said the bodies of the deceased have been mutilated beyond recognition. The deceased include 11 men, two women, a seven-year-old boy and one boy and a girl – both about a year old.