Chips and cola in hand, man waits with 4 sons on railway tracks till train crushes them in Faridabad

Gurgaon: A 36-year-old man led his four sons — the youngest aged three and the oldest nine — to the railway tracks and held them tightly by the arms till an express train ran all five of them over on Tuesday afternoon at Ballabhgarh in Faridabad.Witnesses said Manoj Mehto refused to let the children go even as they pleaded with him to be released as they watched a train – Golden Temple Express – hurtle down the tracks towards them."The train that was coming from Mumbai crushed them under its wheels around 1.10pm," said Rajpal, the SHO of the Govt Railway Police unit.While leaving home near Subhash Colony around 12.15pm, Manoj — originally from Bihar — told his wife Priya that he was taking the kids to a nearby park to play.

Instead, he took them to the tracks and sat under Elson Chowk flyover for about an hour, waiting for the train to arrive. He bought chips and soft drinks for the kids.After the incident, the loco pilot alerted authorities at Ballabhgarh railway station. Police identified Manoj through his Aadhaar card and found his wife's phone number scribbled on a chit in his pocket, indicating Manoj's actions were premeditated, not something that happened on the spur of the moment.

"We initially received information that a woman and her children had jumped before the train. But when we reached the spot, we learnt that a father and his sons were run over on the tracks," a GRP official said.When Priya was called, she told GRP personnel her husband had taken the kids out to the park and would return home soon. Called to the spot, she fainted on seeing their bodies. The remains were taken to the mortuary of Badshah Khan Civil Hospital for autopsy.Police said they were investigating why Manoj, a daily wager, took the drastic step. Police sources said Manoj had a troubled marriage but it wasn't clear if that had anything to do with his act of ending his own and the children's lives."The priority now is to establish Manoj's state of mind and circumstances that led him to take such a step. It is also important to support the bereaved family," a police officer said.