Uttar Pradesh: Drunk friends try to stop train, crushed

Twenty-five-year-old Rakesh Saini and his friend Vikas Joseph were run over by a speeding train.

The incident occurred in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur town, about 90 kilometre from Lucknow, on Saturday night at a level crossing.

According to police sources, the two friends were on their way to a railway station after attending a wedding ceremony in Kanpur.

Saini wanted to catch a train to Lucknow to reach his house and Joseph accompanied him to see him off.

Both Saini and Joseph had consumed alcohol and could barely walk, an eye witnesses said.

When the rickshaw in which they were travelling stopped at a level crossing near the railway station because the gates were closed, both of them decided to walk to the station.

They saw the lights of an approaching train and stood in the middle of the tracks and signaled the train to stop. Both of them were crushed to death by the speeding train.

''Suddenly, both of them stood on the tracks and started waving their hands signaling the approaching train apparently under the influence of liquor. They were smashed by the speeding train,'' an eye witness said.