Teen gamers killed by train

As the train zoomed ahead, it hurled the victims to their death

LODHRAN:

A passenger train had been chugging down the track en route to Karachi on Thursday night in what appeared to be a normal journey, and then an incident happened that one falls short of words to explain.

The train hit two teenagers who had been sitting on the track at the Pathanwala Railway Gate in Quaidabad Colony of Lodhran, playing a game on their mobile phone sets.

The teenagers, who had been reportedly playing PUBG, were so engrossed in their activity that they didn’t see the train coming.

It defies logic that the teenagers missed seeing the train. Besides, one wonders why did they choose the track to sit on it to play their favourite game?

Call it a folly or misfortune, Daniyal, 18, and his buddy, Rustam, 19, died as the train ran its course finding the teenagers in its path.

One could only conjecture what could have happened, and the likely scenario that emerges suggests that the teenagers must have been sitting on the track across from each other and as the train zoomed ahead, it hurled the teenagers to either ends of the track.

Arshad, a grief-stricken uncle of one of the teenagers, while talking to The Express Tribune, said that the friends had been addicted to PUBG, and they never missed a day without playing it.

He said that the other day they played the game while sitting in a rickshaw, but on the ill-fated day they decided to play it while sitting on the rail track.

Arshad said that it was not an unusual thing for the people of the area to sit on the track in the evening and enjoy the breeze especially when the weather was too hot to sit at home.

He said that there was a pair of tracks in their area and people sat carelessly on one of the tracks anticipating a train would be chugging down the other track.

Arshad said that the tracks were sort of a play area for the folks who mocked movie scenes in which a hero was shown crossing a rail track beating an oncoming train by mere seconds.

He said that his nephew had merely had his Iftar with his mother and went out telling her mother that he would spend the night out with his friend and would go to work at daybreak.

Arshad ruled out any foul play, saying that they didn’t have any enmity with anyone, and they were a happy family living with each other harmoniously.

Daniyal and Rustam also had a friend Amir who frequently joined them to play the game.

On the ill-fated day, the two friends went to Amir’s house to take him along. Amir told them that he would join them later.

When Amir didn’t turn up, Daniyal and Rustam telephoned him.

Amir told his friends that he didn’t feel like coming to the track to play the game. Instead, he asked his friends to come to his place where he had arranged two charpoys outside the house, and they could lounge on the charpoys and play the game.

Daniyal and Rustam refused their friend’s offer and continued with their game while sitting on the track.

“If only they had accepted Amir’s offer, things would have been different,” said Arshad with tears flowing down his cheeks.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2023.