Waiting for another stampede.

Waiting for another stampede

Today as I was coming back home in the evening , it was raining . The crowd and the jostling at the entrance of the Currey Road station reminded me of the Elphinstone stampede. What happened on the fateful morning of 29th September 2017 at Elphinstone station could have happened at other stations too. I was myself at the next station Currey Road during the time of the tragedy which killed 22 lives in a stampede. And I can visualise and fully understand how things went wrong at Elphinstone as I had regularly used the footbridge at the adjoinining Parel station. That makes me write about a greater danger lurking and another tragedy waiting to happen, any day, at the Currey Road station.

Currey Road Railway Station is a suburban station in Mumbai which lies on the Central Line, i.e. the Central Railways. It was named after C. Currey, who was the Agent of the BB&CI Railway from 1865 to 1875.This station is said to have been built originally to carry horses during the derby season from stud farms in Pune, in the British era, because of its proximity to the Mahalaxmi race course.   The prominent areas served by this station on the west is Lower Parel and on the east, Lal Baugh.  The two other stations which are next to it are Parel on the North, towards Thane and Chinchpokli on the south, towards CSTM.

Once upon a time, the area around Parel or for that matter between Dadar to Byculla was the hub of trading and industrial activity in Mumbai, particularly by the textile mills. As a corollary, the area around Lower Parel was also dotted with labour barracks, commonly known as Chawls.   All these mills are now closed and the properties owned by many well known industry houses have come up for redevelopment, a euphemism for construction of multi-storeyed buildings on prime property. Many of the chawls are also being redeveloped. It’s a huge creamy cake set up to gobble and the involvement of politicians, builders, goons, financiers and sundry middlemen can only be left to imagination. The whole area is a study in contrast with tall glass panelled structures standing like islands in a sea of old buildings and a heavily congested area. And the construction activity continues.

As the middle class and the working class people of Mumbai increases every year, the city has expanded mainly towards the north and east (Navi Mumbai) because the south and west are bound by the sea. The main commercial centre of the city which was at the southern part, around Fort and Nariman point started getting too far off for the daily commuters. As a result, the business district and commercial centres stared relocating to the Bandra Kurla Complex. But the BKC was not enough to accommodate all the offices. And along with that the Parel area, with its obvious connectivity and available space was tempting for the real estate lobby.  Within the last two decades huge multi-storeyed buildings housing residential and office complexes have come up in this area, mostly on the properties, once synonymous with textile mills.

The area is well connected, in a way, by roads and also by railways. Both the Western and the Central lines pass through this area and the Harbour branch line is also within two kms. The stations of Lower Parel and Elphinstone Road on the western line also serve the daily commuters along with the other two already mentioned on the Central line. The Elphinstone Road (WR) and Parel (CR) are actually adjacent and connected by a foot over bridge and the distance between Lower Parel (WR) and Currey Road (CR) is less than 250 metres. It is expected that the monorail will also be operational soon, connecting the eastern part of the city to this place. The construction is almost complete and trial runs have also been made. In fact the monorail system will also have two stations in the close vicinity of Currey Road Station.

The passenger footfall at these stations has increased exponentially like the income of the sons of politicians as the number of daily commuters too increased in a viral manner. When these stations were built perhaps nobody gave a thought about the rush of daily commuters that would besiege the stations during the office hours, both incoming and outgoing.  And when the area was being developed, nobody bothered to examine if the existing infrastructure would stand up to the crowd that would ensue. As a result, the stations don’t have proper crowd dispersal facilities and in case of any small disruption, natural or mechanical, there is immediately a build up of chaos due to congestion of traffic and crowds on the streets and the platforms.

Let us focus on Currey Road station. Only slow suburban local trains stop here. The station comprises of a single platform, on both sides of which the trains stop, to and fro. Unlike other stations, it does not have the provision of another spare platform for the adjoining tracks for fast local trains which could stop here, in case of emergency. The cause of grave concern is the way how the crowd dispersal system is designed here. The station itself is built upon stilts of steel and not more spacious than one of the luxurious flats in one of the many high-rise buildings around it. The entry to the station opens on a narrow 3 feet wide footpath on the Currey Road Bridge which is a part of Currey Road itself, now named as Mahadev Palav Marg. It connects the main arterial Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road on the east to the N M Joshi Marg an important branch road to another arterial road Senapati Bapat Marg on the west.

The platform is at a lower level under the Currey Road Bridge and there is a single inclined ramp about eight feet wide which is the only way to enter and exit from the platform. During the rush hours, hundreds of commuters disembark from the trains, to and fro and have to jostle their way out of or into the platform. The flow of the crowd gets aggregated at the landing space of the station which, in size is less than a drawing room hall in a normal flat. The two ticket counters also open on this space and the people lined up there add up to the crowd and the jostling.  It does not need too much imagination to visualise the chaos which does not end there itself.

The thronging crowd of commuters have to pass the narrow footpath which is barricaded by a strong steel boundary wall  about four feet high to avoid the crowd spilling over on the bridge and the road used by numerous vehicles including motorcycles, cars, buses and trucks. So getting out or entering the station during the rush hours means a brief round of jostling and pushing through a small narrow stretch for about a minute. It should not be a matter of concern for a fit person on a normal day. And the experience is gender neutral; females are also subjected to the same treatment.  But from personal experience, I can say that it can be very irritating and on days when someone is having a weakness or fever it feels harrowing. Now consider the plight of the old, infirm, disabled and pregnant who have to use the station for their daily commute. Further this does not take into account the crowded station or the efforts to catch a train brimming with commuters.

What happened on the fateful morning of 29th September 2017 at Elphinstone station could have happened at Currey Road station too. The morning was bright and sunny to begin with and when I left home around 8.30 a.m. Though there was a weather alert, I did not carry an umbrella because the rainy season had receded and I didn’t want to be burdened with one. Later, I found that almost everybody did so and this was a major reason for the tragedy. May sound strange but that’s a fact.

The residences of people living in Mumbai are broadly categorised according to the suburban railway lines near their homes – Western line, Central line and Harbour line. Nowadays, something called the Trans-harbour line has also come up. So, I live on the Harbour line and my office is adjacent to Currey Road station, on the Central Line.

By the time I got down at Kurla station to change from the Harbour line to the Central line train, the weather had suddenly changed and dark clouds were threatening heavy rains. Even as I boarded my train, it started pouring heavily. As I reached Currey Road station, I was surprised to find the platform filled with people. For a moment, I wondered but then I realised that it was raining heavily and almost nobody carried an umbrella. They were waiting for the rain to subside. But the rain seemed to be incessant and it was pouring mad. People somehow managed to stand on the platform and with passing time the crowd was swelling in number as trains from both sides brought in fresh commuters at the rush hour, all eager and raring to avoid being marked late for attendance.

I had already decided to wait for the rain to stop and saw some of my colleagues also on the platform, stuck up like the hundreds of other people. Everybody was cursing themselves for not bringing an umbrella but the rain was so much copious that it would be of no use. The only way of exit, the inclined ramp was totally filled with people as was the small station floor. People were neither going out to avoid getting drenched in the rain nor allowing others to go out. Even those who were coming in drenched from outside were blocked from doing so.  All in all, it was maddening.

Perhaps, this was the time when the stampede happened at Elphinstone, just two kms away. Why it didn’t happen at Currey road was simply because of the flat surface of the ramp inclined upwards instead of a stairs going down wards. Pushing people up didn’t generate the momentum for a collapse somewhere. Had it been a staircase, I am sure such tragedy would happen at Currey Road station too. And it can happen any day, not necessarily in the rains. During festivals like Ganapati, the chances of a stampede here is very much real.

I have often pointed to this potential of stampede at Currey Road station and Parel station to many and some of them contacted me after the accident and told me – “You said this could happen”. I am not the least happy to have predicted such a tragedy. My heart goes out to the families of those who died. Why I write this is primarily to narrate the reasons leading to the tragedy and the foreboding that it can happen again, anywhere. But is anybody listening?

P.S: I find that the authorities have now posted police with portable loudspeakers managing and directing the crowd at the entrance . But it is useless in the face of a flash mob situation . Hundreds of people trying to enter a narrow gully in the rains . Try to visualise the situation, you will understand.