NEW YORK: The
46-year old man who was pushed to his death in front of a subway train here
by a "mumbling" woman has been identified as Sunando Sen, an
Indian who lived in the city's Queens neighbourhood.
Sen was killed after
the woman shoved him on to the tracks of an oncoming train in a Queens
subway station late Thursday night.
The incident was the
second time this month that a person was pushed on to the subway tracks by
a fellow commuter.
New York Police
Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the police is still searching for the
female suspect, who raced down two flights of stairs after the attack and
disappeared into a crowd on the street.
Sen had opened a
small copying and printing business this year in the city's Upper West
Side.
He was hit by the
first car of the train and his body was pinned under the second car before
the 11-car train came to a stop.
The condition of
Sen's body had made it difficult for the police to identify him and
investigators used his phone and a medicine bottle he was carrying for his
identification.
Police said his
family in India has been notified.
According to Sen's
roommates, he was not married and his parents were dead.
A R Suman, one of
the four roommates with whom Sen had shared a small apartment, described
him as a "very educated person and quite nice".
"It is
unbelievable. He never had a problem with anyone," Suman said in a New
York Times report.
There was no video
at the subway station and the New York Police Department released a
surveillance video from near the station showing the suspect running away
from the scene.
The woman has been
described as a 5 feet 5 inch tall Hispanic in her 20s wearing a blue, white
and gray jacket and sneakers.
New York Police
Department chief spokesman Paul Browne said according to witnesses, the
woman had been following Sen closely and was mumbling to herself.
Suman said Sen had
toiled hard to save money to open his printing business and hardly took a
day off from work.
"I asked him
why you work seven days a week." Suman said. "He told me, 'I
cannot hire someone because business is not good'".
Sen's roommates said
they could not think of any reason as to why the woman pushed him onto the
tracks.
They said Sen had
suffered a heart attack about nine months ago and was taking medication.
"This guy was so quiet, so gentle, so nice," another of Sen's
roommate M D Khan, a taxi driver, said.
"It's so
broken, my heart," he said adding Sen enjoyed watching funny clips on
YouTube and would listen to classical Indian music.
Meanwhile, witnesses
said Sen was looking out over the tracks and the woman was sitting on a
wooden bench near the wall behind him.
He had his back
towards her and was not aware that she was approaching him. As the train
pulled into the tracks, the woman got up from the bench and pushed Sen
over.
Browne said
according to witnesses, the attack happened so quickly that Sen had little
time to react and neither could the bystanders do anything to save him.
"There's one
witness who was sitting on the bench with the woman, the perpetrator
here," he said. "And there are other witnesses who were on the
platform itself. So we're in the process of gathering information".
The shocking
incident comes just weeks after 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was pushed in front
of a subway train in Times Square by 30-year-old homeless man Naeem Davis.
New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg said such attacks were exceedingly rare and there is
little that can be done to prevent such incidents.
"I don't know
that there is a way to prevent things," Bloomberg said. "There is
always going to be somebody, a deranged person". He said such
incidents were tragic for the families of the victims.
"You can say it's
only two out of the three or four million people who ride the subway every
day, but two is two too many," he told reporters.
"We do live in
a world where our subway platforms are open, and that's not going to
change," he added.
Through posters
pasted on the subway walls, New York authorities have tried to caution
commuters about safety on subway platforms.
They adviseD people
to stand away from the edge of the platform and that they should never
cross the tracks to get to the other side of the station.
The trains and the
platform are not separated by any barriers.
In 2011, 146 people
were struck by New York subway trains, of which 47 died, according to the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The city's subway
system is more than a 100 years old and is one of the world's busiest,
ferrying millions of commuters daily.
|
അഭിപ്രായങ്ങളൊന്നുമില്ല:
ഒരു അഭിപ്രായം പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്യൂ