Thousands of commuters in a luggage compartment saw him and assumed he was asleep. On the evening of September 26, Raghuveer Shankar Nagvekar (50), a clerk in civic ward, was returning home from office at Bandra, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. His body travelled up and down the Western Railway line for more than 12 hours. The next morning, when the train left the Virar yard, commuters got suspicious. At Elphinstone Road station, they informed station superintendent R.B. Hadaile. A search of the body revealed the person’s identity through his railway pass and a phone number through which they realised he was a civic employee at Bandra. But while the superintendent contacted the civic office for details, the Railway Police declared the body unclaimed and sent it to the BYL Nair Hospital morgue in Central Mumbai. His elder brother Ramesh Nagvekar, an executive with The Indian Express, says he was made to run from pillar to post to get possession of the body. Nagvekar was asked by the hospital authorities to take permission from the Railway Police at Mumbai Central for the body to be handed over. ‘‘The police insisted his wife or son come and identify him. His wife is arthritic and cannot walk. But they would not listen,’’ says Nagvekar. Formalities for possession of the body were completed at 8.30 pm on September 27. The body could be taken to the family’s residence only the following day.
