The decomposed body of a 55-year-old woman was recovered from the ground floor of Chennai's elevated Mylapore MRTS railway station on Monday, four days after she went missing.
Preliminary police investigations suggest that she may have accidentally fallen through an opening in the floor of an abandoned second-floor room, plunging to the ground floor and sustaining fatal injuries.
The incident has raised questions about safety lapses at the station.
The woman, identified as Vijaya, a resident of Pallikaranai in Chennai, had gone missing on October 8. According to police, her daughter had lodged a complaint at the Mylapore police station around 10 am that day, stating that her mother had gone to the toilet and had not returned. A missing-person case was registered, and an investigation was initiated.
Four days later, at around 11.50 am on October 12, the station manager alerted the railway police after the woman's decomposed body was found on the ground floor of the station. The Thiruvanmiyur Railway Police registered a case and began investigating the circumstances surrounding her death.
Police suspect that Vijaya may have entered the abandoned room on the station platform to relieve herself, possibly mistaking it for a washroom or being compelled by an urgent need. Investigators believe she may then have fallen through an opening in the room's floor, plunging to the ground floor. The opening, which appears to have allowed the fatal fall, has raised concerns about whether adequate safety measures were in place to prevent such an accident.
A post-mortem examination was conducted at Royapettah Government Hospital on Tuesday. According to the medical report cited by the police, Vijaya had sustained rib and spinal fractures. The report attributed her death to a blood clot near the heart. Her body was subsequently handed over to her husband.
Responding to questions about the potentially unsafe opening, a senior police officer told NDTV: "It is the isolated room... Nobody is expected to be there... So we can't say as lapse. But in future design construction the authorities should keep this in mind."
While the officer stopped short of calling it a lapse, the incident has brought the safety of abandoned spaces and openings within elevated public infrastructure into focus. The investigation is underway.