Hugs, kisses, then tragedy: New details in Malaika Chitre, Navam Kaul’s NYC subway deaths - The Indian Express

An Indian-origin woman and her longtime friend were seen hugging and kissing on a New York subway platform shortly before they were fatally struck by an approaching train, the New York Post reported, citing law-enforcement sources.

Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul, both 24, were killed at the Spring Street station in Lower Manhattan around 3:15 am on Sunday, after they ended up on the tracks as a southbound No. 4 train entered the station. The circumstances leading to their deaths remain under investigation.

According to the sources, Chitre and Kaul, of Nepali descent, were seen hugging and kissing on the platform shortly before the incident. Kaul then appeared to lose his balance and fall onto the tracks, hitting his head, the sources said. Chitre subsequently went down onto the tracks, apparently trying to help him.

The sequence has not been independently established by the authorities. The available video shows the two on the tracks shortly before the train arrived, but does not establish how they got there.

Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul, both 24 and from New Jersey, were pronounced dead after being struck by an oncoming train at a New York subway station around 3:14 a.m.#newyork #subway pic.twitter.com/veD9qDRLGj

The New York Post reported that the two appeared calm while sitting on the tracks as the train approached. The train operator told supervisors that she saw a man and woman sitting on the tracks and attempted to stop the train, but could not prevent the collision. The US media said the woman appeared to be laughing and pulling the man towards her shortly before the train struck them.

The 10-car No. 4 train had about 100 passengers aboard. Four cars entered the station before the emergency brakes stopped the train, according to the report. The passengers were subsequently evacuated onto the platform.

Chitre and Kaul were pronounced dead at the scene. Their bodies were recovered from beneath the third and fourth cars of the train, according to reports citing the MTA incident report.

Police sources have said they were examining whether the pair had been intoxicated and failed to appreciate the danger of remaining on the tracks. Investigators have not established that alcohol played a role. Sources also told the New York Post that they do not believe the deaths were a double suicide.

Earlier reporting had said investigators had not established whether the deaths were accidental or intentional. The NYPD investigation remains ongoing.

Chitre and Kaul were longtime friends from New Jersey and had both attended Rutgers University. Chitre, from Dayton, New Jersey, completed a Bachelor of Science degree at Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences in May 2024. She worked as a quality operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and had recently started a four-year Doctor of Pharmacy programme at Temple University, according to her LinkedIn profile and reports.

Kaul, from Sayreville, New Jersey, attended Rutgers Business School in New Brunswick from 2020 to 2024 but did not receive a degree, reports claimed, citing university information. He worked as a financial data analyst at Bloomberg.

A family friend told the New York Post that they had grown up in similar communities and shared the same group of friends and festivals.

Friends and neighbours described the two as successful young professionals whose deaths were difficult to understand. Rajnikant Pipalia, whose son was a close friend of Kaul, said the two were part of the same South Asian social circle.

“They grew up in the same world,” Pipalia told the New York Post. “They’re all part of the same friends circle, the same South Asian group hanging out together, enjoying the same festivals.”

Speaking about Kaul, Pipalia said, “There’s nothing in his life that would make him do anything stupid.”

A former school friend described Kaul as “down-to-earth”, “goofy, funny, and very charismatic”, while a neighbour who knew Chitre’s family remembered her as a “bright, smart girl”.

Rutgers assistant vice president for news and media relations Dory Devlin said the university was saddened by the deaths of the two former students.

A video shared widely online appears to show Chitre and Kaul sitting on the subway tracks shortly before the No. 4 train arrived. However, the footage does not establish what happened immediately before they reached the tracks. Earlier reports noted that investigators were still trying to determine whether one of them fell or entered the tracks first and whether the other went down in an attempt to help.

The latest account from law-enforcement sources offers a possible sequence, Kaul falling first and Chitre following him, but that remains an investigative account rather than an established finding.

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