quot;If only somebody had pulled mamma upquot;

MUMBAI, July 23: Daisy Challa was your everyday middle-class working woman. Leaving her flat in Andheri for work at 8.30 am, returning at...

MUMBAI, July 23: Daisy Challa was your everyday middle-class working woman. Leaving her flat in Andheri for work at 8.30 am, returning at 7 pm and preparing dinner for her two-member family. Her husband, an ex-army officer had died over 10 years ago.

On Tuesday evening, the 58-year-old secretary in Telecom Industries Ltd lay as a crumpled heap in a corner of platform no 1 in Andheri station at rush hour. Her face bruised and battered, her pink saree caked with dirt and footprints. A lathi charge by local policemen triggered off a stampede and in the melee she was crushed under dozens of scurrying feet.

8220;People say they saw her fall, if only somebody had pulled her up, given her a hand8230;,8221; Monisha her 24-year-old daughter breaks off. Flanked by portraits of her dead parents, she grieves silently.

Unmindful of the panic inside the station, Monisha had waited for her mother outside. She was to meet Daisy outside the station at 6 pm after which they were to go shopping for a birthday gift for hercousin.

Returning home at 8 pm, Monisha received a call from a policeman and asked to immediately come to the Cooper Hospital. Her mother had died soon after being admitted.

Ironically, Daisy wasn8217;t even a commuter. She used the platform to cross over from her office at MIDC in Andheri E after which she took a bus to her house in Seven Bungalows.

8220;But the victims are always innocent people aren8217;t they?,8221; Daisy8217;s sister-in-law Lily Salins asks. Daisy was rushed to the Cooper Hospital, where her relatives say it took a two-hour wait to get a death certificate.

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This is the second death in Challa family. Eleven years ago when Major Oswald Challa died of a heart attack. A civil engineer, he had quit the army in the late 70s to begin his own business. 8220;My mother bore it so courageously then,8221; Manisha says. Daisy who was then on the verge of giving up her job, now worked with renewed vigour to raise her young daughter.

She had worked in Telecom industries for nearly 40 years. Three years ago, theoffice shifted from Mumbai Central to Andheri E. In these years, Daisy had become a familiar face amongst the 6.30 pm regulars who caught the bus to Seven Bungalows. Eyewitnesses who later came for Wednesday8217;s funeral at the Sewree cemetery said that it was everyone for themselves in the melee on Tuesday.It began with a commuter Vithal Wadekar objecting to an RPF sub-inspector K P Singh and constable Umapati Yadav evicting a lady hawker from platform no 5. Wadekar was allegedly manhandled by the police, triggering off an angry response from commuters. Local police were called in when the commuters went on the rampage throwing stones, breaking windows of a passing August Kranti train and holding up local trains for over half an hour.

8220;I was told the police were too busy hammering everyone to even notice my mother being trampled,8221; says Manisha.

The injured RPF personnel and the commuter have been admitted to the Cooper hospital. Railway authorities handed Manisha a cheque for Rs 15,000 as ex-gratiapayment. They are now awaiting the results of the post-mortem to determine whether she is eligible for compensation. 8220;The entire incident including the death of the lady will be enquired into,8221; Special IG of the Government Railway Police Sudhakar Suradkar said.