Criminal case against railway staff three years after woman’s death in Mumbai's CSMT retiring room

MUMBAI: More than three years since a woman died and her husband, an armyman, took ill at the railway retiring room at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), GRP registered a criminal offence against railway staff.The incident took place on April 22, 2016, when Nazia Khatun (27) and her husband, Zia-ur-Rehman checked in the retiring room after it had been recently fumigated. Police said the investigation took time as the initial forensic reports were inconclusive.Zia-ur-Rehman, now a junior engineer with the army, was posted in Pune in 2016. The couple decided to head to Goa and then to Mumbai for a short break. They took Mandovi Express from Goa and after checking in the retiring room at CSMT at 10pm, they ate food purchased from the train and went to bed.“By 1am, we started throwing up. We could barely walk. I repeatedly told the attendant to get us medical help. But she said it was not her job,” Zia-ur-Rehman recollected. Around 5am, the couple was given another room, but their condition had worsened. “Around 10am, I stumbled out of the room and collapsed. Railway staff called the police and an ambulance. My wife and I were admitted to St George’s Hospital, but she succumbed that day. The railway staff’s negligence cost me my wife’s life,” he said.Police later learnt that a few days this incident, another passenger had also taken ill there.Apart from Nazia’s blood samples, stomach wash, viscera and clothes, police took samples of objects from the room and sent them for analysis to the state forensic lab.“It was suspected that fumigation was responsible for her death. But the chemical analysis reports said there was no poisoning. JJ Hospital doctors went through the case. Doctors concluded the fumigation, coupled with the AC’s functioning, led to a reaction which may not show up in forensic reports. We registered a case under IPC section 304 for culpable homicide not amounting to murder,” said a police officer.