Student run over by train while taking selfie

Kolkata: A polytechnic student was run over by a speeding local train while taking a selfie with the train in the background. The tragic incident occurred on Tuesday morning at Kalyani in Nadia district.

The youth who died on the spot has been identified as Rakesh Tribhun. One of his friend who was also on the railway tracks while Rakesh was taking selfie was injured as he fell down beside the tracks in an attempt to save himself from being run over.

Rakesh originally hails from Bihar while his friend Suraj Mondal is a resident of Anandanagar in Kalyani and is a student of Class XI of a local school. Suraj, who had suffered injuries, has been admitted at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial (JNM) Hospital in Kalyani.

The deceased along with his friends was bursting firecrackers beside the railway tracks near 42 number railgate at Bijaynagar in Kalyani at around 7 am on Tuesday morning. Suddenly, they decided to take selfie with the moving train in the background.

"Rakesh was so engrossed in clicking the selfie that he did not realise that the Sealdah-bound train had already come very close to him. When he realized, it was too late," an eye witness said.

Similar incidents occurred at the same place earlier too, however, there were no deaths.

A few months back in April, the selfie craze claimed three lives in Howrah district. Four youth, all in their early twenties, were travelling on a Howrah-bound local train when the mishap took place. One of the youth fell down from the running train while trying to save his mobile phone from falling off his hand as he was clicking a selfie.

Three of his friends soon got off at the Liluah station and began searching for their friend on the tracks when another train came from the opposite direction and hit them. Two of them had died on the spot while the third was critically injured.