Friday’s stampede at Elphinstone Road station took one more victim on Saturday: Satyendra Kanojia, 35, succumbed to his injuries at KEM Hospital, taking the death toll to 23.
Satyendra had been brought to KEM in critical condition. “He had a severe axonal injury,” said dean of KEM, Dr. Avinash Supe, referring to a kind of traumatic brain injury. “His blood pressure was fluctuating constantly as well.” He was on ventilator support, but passed away at around 11 a.m. His cousin Rajesh, with whom he lived in Vikhroli, said that Satyendra worked in a garment company near Elphinstone, and his wife, Sitaradevi, and three children, live in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, and visited frequently. Sitaradevi is on her way to Mumbai and the last rites will be performed after her arrival.
The bodies of four victims remain unclaimed. On Friday night, the last to be identified was named as Tilakram Teli, a migrant from Nepal.
Of the 39 injured in KEM, four have been discharged, and are being given trauma counselling, as recommended by the psychiatric department. Dhunistha Joshi, 17, who suffered fractures, was shifted to a railway hospital, and another patient, was transferred to a private hospital by family members. A patient who was in the ICU on Friday night was now in an ordinary ward.
The 31 other patients are reported to be stable.
Accused of insensitivity
Meanwhile, on Saturday at around 5.45 p.m., six men barged into the office of the hospital’s forensic head, Dr. Harish Pathak, and attempted to write a number on his forehead with a marker. The men, claiming to be Shiv Sena workers, said they were protesting the numbers written on the corpses of the victims. One, who identified himself as Nilesh Dhumal from Pimpri-Chinchwad, said, “Such numbering is done for dead terrorists. We want to write zero on his forehead because these doctors have shown zero humanity.” A journalist who was with Dr. Pathak raised an alarm, and when help rushed, the men fled, but Dhumal and one other were caught by the Bhoiwada police, who registered an FIR against them. Doctors explained that tagging or numbering, usually on the cheek, is common in multi-casualty situations. The decision was taken jointly by the hospital and the police when the bodies were brought in. “It was the enormity of the disaster that worked everyone up,” a doctor said. “They did it to avoid chaos at that time.”
People unable to contact relatives or friends in the area at the time of the stampede rushed to KEM, where the dead and injured were taken. “It would have been traumatising for relatives to see all the dead bodies,” Dr. Pathak said.
“Hence we numbered them, took photographs, and showed them to relatives on a laptop. Subsequently, the photographs were printed on a flex and displayed at the hospital, to expedite identification.”
This helped identify 19 bodies within three hours, he said. Many people found the images insensitive, Dr. Pathak acknowledged, but they were meant to help doctors and the police. Those who shared the pictures on social media were insensitive, he said. “We did it for a purpose. They had no purpose.”
