Walking along the railway tracks while talking on his mobile phone cost an 18-year-old student his life in Chetpet on Thursday morning.
The accident took place around 9.30 a.m. behind the college, when the victim M. Vignesh, a first-year student of Pachaiyappa’s college, disembarked from the EMU train at Nungambakkam and was walking along the tracks to reach the college. An EMU train headed towards Chennai Beach knocked him down and he was injured badly, Government Railway Police sources said.
Students of the college, who get off the train at Nungambakkam and Chetpet railway stations, often walk along the tracks, taking the shorter route to reach the hostel. “The hostel is located in between the stations so it is easy to walk the 100 metres by the tracks and jump a wall to enter the campus,” said Mahesh Kumar, an evening scholar of the college.
According to a professor of the college, Vignesh was talking on the phone and some of his college mates walking a few metres behind him spotted the train and shouted out to him, but he was unable to react in time.
The students rushed Vignesh in an autorickshaw to a private hospital on Harrington Road, Chetpet, but he died on the way, he added.
Vignesh’s body was taken to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital where a post-mortem was conducted. His body was handed over to relatives on Thursday evening.
Vignesh, a day scholar, was residing in Saidapet with his sister and family and commuted to college by EMU. He is a native of Marakkanam, where his parents Manivannan and Amudha are farmers.
