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This is an archive article published on May 17, 2016

7-yr-old gets left behind while returning to Pune as grandpa gets off train for water, reunites at next station

All because of what he calls his own fault and one which he said will be difficult for him to forget anytime soon.

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SEVENTY-YEAR-old William Naidu, a resident of Chinchwad, had a horrifying time while returning to Pune by an express train from Chennai on Friday evening. All because of what he calls his own fault and one which he said will be difficult for him to forget anytime soon.

Naidu had gone to Chennai with his seven-year-old grand-daughter, Kaitlyn Naidu, for a relative’s wedding. While returning to Pune by Chennai-Mumbai Express on Friday, Naidu got down at Guntakal station at 8.30 pm to get water. “Since Guntakal is a big junction, the train stops there for at least half an hour. We had dinner and stepped out to get water without realising that time was running out…,” said Naidu.

One of the water filters was located at far end of the station. “Just as I had filled the bottles, I noticed that the train had started moving. I ran to the nearby station master’s cabin. He directed me to the guard. But before I could reach the guard, he had given the green signal,” said Naidu, recalling his horrifying moments.

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A shaken Naidu then returned to the station master’s cabin and requested him to alert the officials at the next station at Adoni to deboard his granddaughter with the luggage. “The next station was an hour away. And I was worried about the safety of the child,” said Naidu.

Luckily for him, the girl sought help from co-passengers. “She asked one of them to call up her father on his cellphone. She remembered her father’s cellphone. My son then was in touch with her,” said Naidu. The co-passengers comforted the child and kept assuring that she will meet her grandfather at the next station. The girl was deboarded at Adoni where the station master gave her water and refreshments. For Naidu, the next train was at 10 pm and reached Adoni only by midnight. “After hours of anxious wait, I finally got to meet my granddaughter. It was the worst experience of my life. I have travelled all over India, but this had never happened to me,” said Naidu. The two returned to Pune on Saturday morning.

Kaitlyn, who is a Class 3 student of Kamalnayan Bajaj School, kept her calm during the journey. “Kaitlyn has a good presence of mind, which helped her in this situation,” said Naidu.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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