Haryana: 8-year-old dies in moving train after not receiving medical aid

Ambala: A migrant labourer has alleged that his eight-year-old daughter passed away in a moving train in Haryana after not receiving any medical aid when she felt extremely sick during the journey.

Rintu Chaudhry, who belongs to a village in Bihar, said he, his daughter and his wife had boarded a train to Howrah, West Bengal, on Monday from Ludhiana, Punjab, where he works in a factory.

As soon as the train started from Ludhiana, the girl started vomiting continuously, Chaudhry said. "When her condition became serious, one of the passengers rang up railway helpline number 138 using his mobile phone, but no medical aid was provided to my daughter," he told reporters here on Monday.

"The girl took her last breath just before the train reached the Ambala Cantonment station (Haryana) after nearly two hours of journey." The train arrived at the Ambala station around 10 am, where Chaudhry said he met an official of the Railway Protection Force, who advised him to meet the station master.

According to the girl's father, a railway official at the Ambala station asked him to report the matter to the Government Railway Police (GRP) station, which he said was located nearly a kilometre away from the railway station.

Chaudhry said he put the body of his daughter on his lap and went to the GRP police station, where the police officials helped him and made arrangements for shifting the body to the civil hospital for post-mortem.

Later the body was handed over to her parents. When contacted, GRP police station incharge Ram Bachan Rai said on Tuesday that a couple had come to him along with a dead body of a minor girl on Monday.

"No railway official was accompanying them for assistance. The body was sent to the civil hospital for post mortem," the officer said. Ambala station director B S Gill said the parents of the girl had met the station master. Gill said a railway doctor was summoned, but the girl was declared dead.

"Other formalities had to be completed by the GRP, which is why the family was asked to meet the GRP officials," he added.