Indian rail worker saves child from train with seconds to spare

Pointsman receives cash reward from government and motorcycle from businessman

An Indian railway worker saved the life of a young child from a fast-approaching train with only seconds to spare.

The incident took place on 17 April at the Vangani station in the Mumbai region of Maharashtra, a state on India’s western coast.

The ministry of railways shared a 30-second video clip on Twitter which showed a woman walking with a child on a railway platform when the child suddenly falls off the platform on the tracks.

According to the video, the child gets up from the tracks and is trying to climb back on the platform, and the woman tries to pull up the six-year-old boy. At that moment, a man working for the Indian government’s railways department suddenly appears in the video sprinting towards the boy.

He reaches him, picks him up and puts him on the platform with the fast-approaching train just a few metres away.

All this happened in a matter of 15 seconds. In its tweet, the ministry identified the man as Mayur Shelke.

“Pointsman Mayur Shelkhe saved the life of a child just in the nick of the time. He risked his life to save the life of the child. We salute his exemplary courage and utmost devotion to the duty,” said the tweet.

India’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, also announced an award of Rs 50,000 (£475) for Mr Shelke for “the act of bravery, courage and presence of mind on duty”.

Anupam Thareja, a businessman associated with Jawa Motorcycles, tweeted that Mr Shelke’s “courage has the Jawa Motorcycles family in awe”.

“Humbled by his act of exemplary bravery, truly the stuff of legends. And we’d like to honour this brave gentleman by awarding him with a Jawa Motorcycle as part of the #JawaHeroes initiative. The entire [Jawa Motorcycles] family sends across a heartfelt cheer to Pointsman Mayur Shelke,” he tweeted.