Central Railways ropes in Amitabh Bachchan to appeal commuters to travel safe

To spread the message of safe train travel, the Central Railways has roped in Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan. The CR issued a two-minute-long video message on Wednesday in which Bachchan appeals passengers to follow safety rules, not to cross the tracks and use foot over-bridges instead. “Life doesn’t give you a lifeline always,” the Bollywood legend cautions the commuters in the video.

The video message was released at a function at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) building in the presence of CR’s general manager DK Sharma and other officials. Bachchan remembered his first tryst with the railway when he was two years old and recounted how he was mesmerised when he saw a train for the first time.

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Sharma said, “People nowadays are so engrossed in their mobile phones, they become inattentive towards safety rules. You may be lucky 99 times but you may not be lucky enough on the 100^th time. So please, be careful and follow the rules.”

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A recent query under the Right to Information (RTI) had found that 18,423 people died and 18,847 people were injured in train-related mishaps in the Mumbai region between January 2013 and August 2018. As many as 1,974 people have died in the first eight months of the current year in such mishaps, the RTI reply said.