Two youths travelling on the roof of a train were electrocuted near Mumbai’s Mira Road station after they came in contact with a high voltage wire overhead. Nadim Mulla, 25, died on the spot; Satyanarayan Mishra, 19, is critical and still unconscious at Bhagwati Hospital, where he has been admitted with 60 per cent burns.

This comes amid a series of efforts, from penalties to plastic nails on rooftops, from counseling to radio jingles, by the railways to curb such travel. Two weeks ago, a similar incident had caused a death at Dadar station, Western Railway officials said.

Monday’s incident took place at 9.05 am. The train was travelling from Virar to Churchgate, said Shyam Sunder Gupta, chief spokesperson for WR.

Of the victims, Mulla was a resident of Jambori in Ratnagiri, and Mishra is a Virar resident and works with a telecom company at Andheri.

“Mulla had been visiting his uncle in Mumbai. He climbed the roof at Mira Road station, came in contact with the wire and got entangled in the wire,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police D B Sidam.

Power supply had to be stopped for some time to allow workers to free the body from the wires. This delayed trains by about 20 minutes.

Contact with the overhead equipment is more likely than ever to kill instantly, with the 1,500-volt DC line having been converted to an AC one of 25,000 volts during the first phase of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project. The sections between Borivali and Virar, and Kalyan and Kasara, have been converted so far.

A survey by WR had found that blue-collared workers and students from suburbs beyond Borivali, aged between 18 and 30, form the largest chunk of rooftop travellers. “The survey show that rooftop climbers could have easily found a place in the train, but still travel this way as an act of daredevilry,” said a WR official.

Effort after effort to curb the practice has failed. A few years ago, roof tops were covered with plastic nails but those were damaged.

“We have been conducting regular raids, arresting and fining rooftop travellers, and even started counselling them on the dangers of rooftop travel,” said Gupta. “We run jingles on FM channels, publish advertisements, make announcements, but people don’t seem to care for their lives,” added Gupta.