Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus

The full name of this station is Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. “Chhatrapati” is the title of a supreme ruler, and “maharaj” is an honorific form of address for a king. Shivaji founded the Maratha Empire in the seventeenth century, so he is especially revered in Maharashtra. He had no connection to the railway. The station was formerly called Victoria Terminus, in honor of the British Queen Victoria.

Behind the old facade, two parts of the station stand side by side: one receives long-distance trains, while the other is where urban commuter-train routes end. Between them is a shared passenger hall. This layout determined the events of the evening of November twenty-sixth, two thousand eight.

Vishnu Dattaram Zende worked as an announcer on the suburban lines. He spent his eight-hour shift in a glass booth on a mezzanine level above the middle of the hall. From there, the passageways and platforms one through seven were visible. Zende earned his living by announcing train arrival and departure times. Passengers were used to following his instructions.

At about ten in the evening, he heard an explosion in the part of the station where long-distance trains stopped. Injured people ran from there. Two terrorists were shooting at passengers and moving toward the suburban hall, while commuter trains continued to arrive. Hundreds of people could step out of each train—straight toward the shooters.

Zende first called the railway police. Then he began repeating in Hindi and Marathi that arriving passengers should not go to the long-distance train hall: they had to remain in the carriages or leave through the first platform and the rear gates. The first platform was farthest from the attackers. People made their way to it even through train sets standing nearby.

The shooters noticed the booth. Zende's colleague Girija Shankar Tiwari, who operated the information boards, turned off the lights. Both men ducked when a bullet pierced the glass. From the darkened booth, Zende continued directing passengers, then sent neighboring stations an instruction to hold back commuter trains heading to the station.

In the long-distance section, the attackers killed fifty-two people and wounded one hundred nine. The warning reached those passengers too late. But people from the arriving commuter trains left through the opposite end of the station. Later, the Supreme Court of India specifically noted that Zende's constant announcements saved many people from death and injury.

When the terrorists left the station, Zende called on porters, cleaners, and other railway workers to help the injured. He returned home only the next day. Later, he testified in court and identified the captured attacker. He remained with the railway and later became a train conductor.

The glass with the bullet hole was not preserved: the damage was covered over, and the announcer's booth was moved to an adjoining room. A small memorial plaque on platform nine bears the names of the fifty-two people who died here that evening.