Over-Crowded Train Carrying People 10 Times Its Capacity And Seat Sharing Also Among Reasons For Junaid's Death

If you transport people like animals, won't they behave like them," asks Rishi Kumar, who has been using the Delhi-Mathura local to travel between Hodal and Palwal railway stations every day for over a decade.

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This is the same fateful EMU, or electrical multiple unit, train on which Junaid Khan was stabbed to death, though with the bloodstains washed away, it was back to normal business the next day.

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Kumar may spend much of his commute time singing bhajans about Krishna and Kabir, but divine thoughts are a rarity. Scuffles, quarrels, even physical fights, are common within these humid metallic boxes packed sometimes ten times of their seating capacity. The fight with Khan and his brothers allegedly began over seat sharing, and in the four-hour, 141-km journey from Delhi to Mathura, TOI realised this was nothing out of the ordinary.

A crammed humanity travels everyday on the train, thousands stepping into, thousands stepping off the train at the 21 stations on the way. With several industrial and commercial centres on the route, the train feeds the demand for workers from satellite towns like Ballabhgarh, Palwal and Hodal in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

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"Standing space is a luxury,' says Mohar Ram from his haven in the corner behind the compartment door. In his 14 years of daily travels to Noida, Ram has had drug addicts and drunks for companion. "There are many jhuggis along the way and lads throw stones at the train just for entertainment," he added.

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Travelling is a nightmare for women.There are coaches reserved for women, but with few GRP personnel to enforce rules, men take over the precious space. That is why Bhagat Singh, a Delhi government health department employee from Ballabhgarh, says, "A woman can hardly survive on this train. A couple of days ago, a woman got stuck in a tight pack of men, but the coach was so jam packed that she could not ask anyone to move."

In a complete absence of any kind of supervision - no CCTV cameras, no railway police, not even ticket checkers - it is the crowd that makes the rules and enforces them also. "There has been almost no improvement in these coaches in the 20 years I have been using them," grumbles Devinder Singh, a computer instructor at NIT Faridabad."Every day, the trains carry over 10 times their capacity. And why can't we have a system like in Mumbai, where trains run every 15-20 minutes."

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Commuters, who pay a mere Rs 35 for the 141-km trip, identified the stretch between Kosi Kalan and Faridabad to be most problematic both in terms of passenger rush, frayed nerves and muscle power. "Fights occur daily here," says Dinesh Tanwar, though, he added, the killing of Khan was a first of kind. He held out his phone and showed the video of bloody compartment he had shot on that fateful Thursday night. Like him, many others had witnessed the fight, but all claimed ignorance, reluctant to be questioned by police.

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There are many Muslim localities on the route, including Okhla, Nizamuddin, Faridabad and some villages in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. However, there were hardly any Muslim commuters visibly dressed in their traditional attire. Shakil Quraishi, an itinerant labourer, hesitantly expresses his apprehensions: "Dekhiya mahoul kharab to hua hai chunav kay baad (the atmosphere has been vitiated since the UP elections). It is as if Muslims have lost some kind of war."

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At Faridabad, the already stuffed compartment took on more passengers.

In the gas chamber of sorts, people become edgy and arguments over people stepping on each other's toes and goods ensued. Devender Singh, however, testified that today was actually "a good day" the crowd was smaller and -heaven be thanked -the train was on time.

At Hodal, hundreds more rushed into the train's heaving innards. In a few seconds, every vacated toe space was re-occupied. "People will come and sit on your lap," says Manoj Kumar, who works as a surgeon's assistant in Faridabad. "If you object, they'll pounce on you. Many of them are drug consumers." During the two-way experience, this reporter saw only one GRP personnel on the train, at Vrindavan, towards the latter part of one trip.

Life on a Delhi local isn't, of course, only about fisticuffs and space grabbing. While today's commuters retreat behind the technological curtain provided by earphones and mobile phones, many pass the time singing bhajans.

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Equipped with a mike, cymbals and small drums, a group spent the entire four hours singing devotional songs. "I have been singing with this group for 10 years," chuckles Rishi Kumar. "Members in the group keep changing though."

With the monsoon winds thankfully bringing relief in the overcrowded compartments, the local chugs along green fields as the lead singer sings, "Guru hi ishwar, guru hi Allah, guru hi KaabaKashi main, guru hi to gurdwaron main hain, Bible ki tallashon main". As the singer disembarks at Ballabhgarh, the strains of Kabir's bhajan couldn't have sounded more ironic.