Kolkata: Two persons died after being hit by a train while crossing railway tracks at Ramrajatala in Howrah on Monday afternoon.
According to the police, the incident took place at around 1.30 pm. Preliminary investigation revealed that they were crossing the railway tracks instead of using the foot overbridge.
The incident took place at a distance of around 500 metre from Ramrajatala Station.
Police came to know from the eye-witnesses that the two were in a hurry and had risked their lives to cross the railway tracks instead of using the foot overbridge.
They couldn't measure the distance of the approaching train and failed to cross the tracks on time. As a result, they were hit by the speeding train, leading to their death at the spot.
It is learnt that some people even shouted out to alert them that the train was approaching but somehow they could not hear them. Police went to the spot and sent the bodies for post-mortem.
It may be mentioned that the Railway authorities has been carrying out massive awareness campaigns to ensure that people use foot overbridges instead of risking their lives to cross the railway tracks.
Security personnel constantly maintain a vigil so that people do not cross the railway tracks. But there are a section of people, who take short cuts regularly to reach to a platform by crossing railway tracks instead of using the foot over bridges.
However, the number of such people has considerably gone down with a series of measures taken by the Railway authorities.
The latter are still doing awareness campaigns to make people aware about using the footbridges and to follow the norms at level crossings.