The selfie-related deaths continue to rise in the country with another ‘selfie’ moment ending in a tragedy for two youths who were run over by a train while clicking themselves on the tracks in Mirzapur while a curious onlooker trying to get a closer look at them fell to his death from the train.
This was the sixth incidents reported this year in India which reportedly accounted for half of the world’s selfie deaths last year.
The incident took place about 20 metres from railway crossing in Mirzapur on Saturday when Vinod (18) and Jitendra (20) were trying to take a selfie in front of the Brahmaputra mail and were warned by the gateman on duty to step away.
They tried to jump on another railway line when the train came closer but failed, a senior Railway official said.
Another person, who was on the train and was trying to get a closer look at them fell off the Brahmaputra Mail and died, the official said.
On February 5 this year, a 14-year-old boy died after falling into defunct coal mine in Anuppuristrict of Madhya Pradesh. The boy Manish Rathore was trying to click a selfie and accidentally fell into the mine and died on the spot.
Four days before on February 1, a 17-year-old boy was run over by a train while attempting to take a selfie on railway tracks in Chennai.
In January, three people lost their lives while taking selfie. On January 20, a 20-year-old man in Dehradun who was clicking pictures with a friend fell into a canal in Vikas Nagar area and drowned. On the same day, a 23-year-old tourist to the Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur city died after he fell down from the ramparts of the fort while trying to click a selfie.
A week before on January 9, a college girl fell into the swirling Arabian Sea and drown while clicking a selfie off a rocky beach at Mumbai’s Bandra Bandstand and a youth who plunged into the water to save her were both untraced.