Hyderabad techie taking pics on mobile hit by train, dies

KOLKATA: A 23-year-old software engineer from Hyderabad, specialising in cyber security, was hit by a train and died when he was trying to take a photograph with his mobile phone while crossing the Circular Railway tracks near Judge’s Ghat on Sunday afternoon.


Kantamani Sri Vayuputra, a resident of Kovvur near Hyderabad and posted at Vijayawada, had come to the city a week ago to take part in a training programme at a Sodepur institute. On Sunday afternoon, he, along with two friends, was out on a day trip of the city and was walking along the riverbank near Judges’ Ghat when the accident happened around 12 noon.

“We were chatting when he took out his phone and tried to run towards the paved river banks to take a photograph of the Hooghly with the blue sky and white clouds in the backdrop. But he didn’t notice the train tracks and an approaching train. We shouted to alert Vayuputra and he even turned back and tried to jump off the tracks. But it was too late and he was hit by the train,” said Binoy Shivaram, his colleague.

Since the Majerhat-bound Hasnabad Local was moving at a slow pace, the driver, had slammed the brakes but Vayuputra got stuck between the cowcatcher (a V-shaped iron structure on the front of a train to push objects on tracks out of the way) and the tracks.

He was stuck there for more than 45 minutes, as friends and locals tried in vain to bring him out of the iron mesh. “Then we stopped a car whose driver set up a car jack under the cowcatcher to lift it from Vayu’s body as we pulled him out. He was breathing and even speaking as we took him to SSKM hospital on a police ambulance. He died in the hospital after an hour later around 2.30pm,” Shivaram said.

Doctors at SSKM said Vayuputra died of internal injuries after bleeding profusely from the lungs and brain. Apart from the internal injuries, he had suffered abrasion injuries on his legs, spine, chest and back of the head.

Officers of Dum Dum GRP said the youth’s parents were informed and that they were expected to fly down to the city late on Sunday or early on Monday. “It was a freak accident. Trains move slowly along the tracks in this part of the city. The driver had also honked multiple times. But the youth missed the warnings and was hit by the train,” said an officer at Dum Dum GRP.