Four senior citizens from Tamil Nadu, travelling on a train from Agra to Coimbatore, died on Monday near the Jhansi railway station in Uttar Pradesh. The deceased were part of a group undertaking a religious tour of north India.
The deceased were identified as Pachaiappan, 80, Balakrishnan, 67, Dhanalakshmi, 74, and Subbarayan, 87.
Three of them are from Coimbatore and one from Coonoor.
A fifth member from the group, Kaladevi, 58, passed away before the group boarded the Kerala Express bound for Thiruvananthapuram at Agra.
Heat wave conditions
According to co-passengers, the four elderly victims were unable to bear the intense heat wave conditions prevailing in north India.
According to officials of Jhansi Division of the North Central Railway, an emergency call was made to the Jhansi Junction that four persons had “fainted” in the S8 and S9 coaches. Immediately, a railway medical specialist was kept in readiness.
When the train reached the station, the doctor examined the four persons, and found Pachaiappan, Balakrishnan and Dhanalakshmi had already died while Subbarayan was in a serious condition.
He was rushed to the nearby Jhansi District Civil Hospital, where he died later.
Case filed
The authorities passed on information to Government Railway Police, who filed a case and completed the post mortem examination at the Jhansi Civil Hospital.
The bodies were handed over to the group members and sent to Coimbatore in a separate coach on Tuesday.
Jhansi Divisional Railway Manager Neeraj Ambisht visited the station and instructed the officials to provide all necessary help to the victims.
According to the Jhansi Division Public Relations Officer, the train left New Delhi at 11.25 a.m. on Monday and reached Agra Cantonment at 2.05 p.m.
However, on hearing that the passengers were having health problems, the train, which had a travel time of 210 minutes and should have reached Jhansi at 5.40 p.m., reached almost an hour ahead. Regarding the cause of death, the PRO said the post mortem report is yet to be released.
One of the tour organisers, who did not want to be named, said that every year a large group from Coimbatore visited various places in north India in May. This year, the group of more than 100 persons had gone on a trip to Agra and Varanasi.
