MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Wednesday assured north Indians in the State of their personal security. He termed Tuesday’s lynching of a migrant worker aboard a suburban train unfortunate and asserted that it was not a hate crime.

Mr. Deshmukh said Chief Secretary Johny Joseph had been asked to inquire into the incident. The government announced a compensation of Rs. 2 lakh to the family of the victim, Dharamdeo Rai, a 25-year-old worker from Uttar Pradesh.

Coming a day after a youth from Bihar was shot dead by the Mumbai police, the incident has sent shock waves in the city.

Rai was beaten up by a group aboard the train near Khopoli. He was hospitalised, but did not recover from a punctured liver. Rai’s uncle and cousin were with him at the time of the incident.

Railway Police Commissioner A.K. Sharma confirmed that Rai died due to the beating. A case of murder was registered against 10- 12 persons at the Karjat railway police station.

No arrest has been made, though several people are being questioned. There is no suspicion yet on the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Mr. Sharma said the people who attacked Rai did not raise any slogan or display political affiliations. Home guards aboard the train were in another compartment at the time of the incident. Based on eyewitness accounts, sketches of the attackers were being prepared.

He said security had been increased on trains due to the volatile situation in the State.

Shiv Kumar Verma, a friend of Rai, said four of them boarded the train at Khopoli around 2 p.m. to go to Kurla, from where they were planning to take a train to Uttar Pradesh. “After the train started moving, some people came to us and asked us if we were bhayyas [a derogatory term for north Indians]. We said ‘yes’. At this, they started abusing and beating us up. Dharamdeo was beaten very badly and we too suffered many blows,” said Verma. “Those people asked us what we were doing here and why we were working here. We were so scared, we said we are going back but they beat us up anyway. After the incident we came to the police station.”

Verma is from Faizabad and, along with Rai, was working in a steel factory in Raigad district. Rai was married and has a daughter back home at Boria Ghat village in Sant Kabir Nagar district. He took up the job just three months ago.

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