A 19-year-old youth was run over by an electric train between Chromepet and Tambaram Sanatorium stations on Sunday.
He was crossing the railway track when the accident occurred around 8 a.m.
Government Railway Police said M. Prabhu Deva, a native of Keela Kallandhiri in Madurai district, had come to the house of his uncle Bose in Chromepet a few days ago. He had completed a diploma in computer technology and was in search of a job.
On Sunday morning, he left Chromepet after informing his uncle and his cousins that he was leaving for his hometown and would return to Chennai in some days. He was crossing the track beneath the road overbridge at MIT Gate when he was hit by the train heading towards Tambaram from Chennai Beach. His body was later taken to Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet for post-mortem examination.
Prabhu Deva had come to Chennai with great hopes after years of struggling through abject poverty to get an education. His father N.Matcham had died when he was a child and his mother Meena and her mother Karuppayi are daily wage earners, earning meagre sums working in farmlands around their hometown in Keela Kallandhiri.
Meena enrolled her son at a government hostel in Sembatti, while he joined the RC High School in Michaelpalayam in Nilakottai, Dindigul District. Prabhu Deva completed his class X in 2009, scoring 390 marks out of 500, including good scores in mathematics, science and social science. As he could not continue his schooling, Prabhu Deva joined a polytechnic where he earned a diploma.
“He was a very bright student. He came to Chennai hoping to get a decent job. My son and daughter are working and I was planning to get Prabhu Deva a job with their help,” said Mr. Bose.
Prabhu Deva’s younger sister Soudha, has completed her diploma in nursing and supports her family by working at a private hospital in Madurai. Passers-by, who gathered at the accident spot on Sunday morning, appealed to the Southern Railway and the State Highways Department to permanently fence the gap at the spot, which has been the scene of several such fatal accidents.
