Row over train seat costs Mumbai woman her life

In a spine-chilling incident, Mumbai resident Ratna Raju Kavalkar (25) was strangulated to death by two women following a heated argument over occupying a seat in a general ladies compartment of the Solapur-Mumbai Siddheshwar Express on Saturday night.

Ratna’s two daughters, one aged five and the other aged two, witnessed their mother being killed by two women in a savage manner.

A resident of Nalasopara in Mumbai, Ratna was returning to Mumbai after attending the funeral of a relative in Solapur when the incident took place. The Government Railway Police has arrested Thane resident Gurubai Pundalik Talkeri (60) and Muktabai Bhaskar Meghinekari (45), a resident of Unali village in Bijapur district for murdering Ratna.

Sunil Gaikwad, senior divisional commercial manager of Solapur railway station, told DNA, “Ratna, her husband and their daughters Anita and Sunita boarded the general compartment of Siddhheshwar Express at Solapur around 9.45pm. Ratna and her daughters entered the ladies general compartment while her husband went to the other compartment. Ratna and the two women entered into an argument when Ratna asked them to share the seat with her daughters."

"Angered over Ratna’s insistence, one of the women held her hand and while the other strangulated her. Such was the force of the attack that Ratna died instantly.  When the other passengers realised that Ratna had died, they alerted railway officials on board who helped the girls reunite with their father and took Ratna’s body out of the train,” added Gaikwad.