Even as Central Railway and Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) played the blame game after Friday’s tragedy, the former came under fire from its own staff, including other motormen, for not expediting rescue work in the initial minutes after the accident.

Immediately after the accident, among the first to arrive was a fire brigade team from the Thane Municipal Corporation. They were, however, ill-equipped to clear the tracks and rescue the motorman and the injured passengers.

The TMC itself was not equipped to handle such a disaster and its officials mostly banked on the railway authorities.

CR General Manager Bharat Bhushan Modgil personally monitored the rescue and restoration operations soon, but it came too late. “It took three hours to rescue the motorman. This shows how badly the work was done,” said Shailesh Sawant, a neighbour of motorman R Ramchandran who died later.

“Gas cutters and other equipment arrived very late. Ideally the Road Accident Relief vehicle and relief cars at Kalyan and Kurla have gas cutters, but they were not pressed into service immediately. It almost took the rescue vans an hour to reach the spot,” said another motorman.

Such was the anger against the poor rescue work that when Modgil visited the Thane Civil Hospital to meet the injured, a small mob surrounded him and then prevented him from getting into his car. The crowd later asked Modgil to see the body of the motorman.

The CR, on its part, denied that rescue work could have been done faster. “The rescue team did reach early, but work could not be speeded up as the broken pipeline had affected the work,” said a CR spokesperson.

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