Ajmerbound Shatabdi Express from New Delhi ran over six people, including a woman and a two-year-old child, at Haily Mandi near Gurgaon on Tuesday morning. The fatal accident sparked a riot-like situation with locals ransacking the train and damaging the Pataudi road station.

The mishap took place at 7.21am when the victims, all from Jhatoli village near Pataudi, were crossing the tracks to reach the Pataudi station to catch a train to Gurgaon. "They had alighted from a bus on the flyover above the railway line. But instead of taking the long road route to the Pataudi station, they got down from the flyover using the stairs and walked down to the tracks. Unfortunately, the victims didn't notice the Shatabdi hurtling towards them," said a senior railway cop at the station. Officials told Times City that the victims "might have got distracted by a goods train that had changed track to give way to the Shatabdi".

The victims have been identified as Akhtar Singh (50), Ved Prakash (48), Veer Singh (53), Kalu (51), Alka (45) and Chahat (2). Sapna (21) was lucky to survive and is admitted in a local government hospital where doctors attending on her described her condition to be stable.

The accident triggered a massive protest by locals. The angry crowd damaged railway property, including booking counters, worth lakhs, and beat up the staff. Northern Railway chief spokesperson Anant Swarup said the engine hit the victims and came to a halt after developing technical problems. "Before the diesel loco could be replaced with another one from Delhi, about 250 people surrounded the train and pelted stones. Eight windows of coaches and the engine were damaged. The mob then attacked the railway staff and looted Rs 60,000 from the ticket counters. A UTS (local ticket) vending machine was vandalized and the card tickets torn up, and monthly passes were looted," he told Times City. "The tracks were cleared and the Ajmer Shatabdi left for Jaipur at 1.15 pm," Swarup added.

The mob was pacified only after Gurgaon deputy commissioner Rajendra Kataria announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the family members of the victims and a government job to the kin of two victims who were government employee.

Meanwhile, senior Northern Railway officials said that a probe has been ordered. The sequence of events narrated by the railways though differs widely from that of eyewitness accounts. "Though it has been claimed that the victims were walking on the track from near the flyover, we have no credible evidence to suggest that they were hit from the front. The train driver said he spotted the victims crossing the tracks late as they were hidden by the goods train traveling on a separate track. He said a few were on the tracks and others were standing nearby. But despite spotting them late, the driver couldn’t stop the train as a super fast like Shatabdi needs at least 1200 meters to come to a complete halt," said B D Garg, divisional railway manager, Delhi division.