Photo: Gryffindor, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Two 24-year-olds from New Jersey were struck and killed by a southbound 4 train at the Spring Street station in SoHo early Sunday, Sept. 13. They’ve been identified as Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul.
It happened just before 3:15 a.m. at the Spring Street 6 train station at Lafayette Street, where the 4 train was running on the local track, according to an initial MTA incident report obtained by the Daily News. The operator tried to apply the emergency brakes but couldn’t stop in time, and EMS pronounced both people dead at the scene, amNewYork reported.
The operator told supervisors she “saw a man and woman sitting on the track,” according to the incident report. The Daily News reported that it happened near the uptown end of the station. About 100 passengers were on board and were evacuated onto the platform.
It isn’t known why the two were on the tracks. Police sources told the New York Post it wasn’t clear whether Kaul fell or climbed down, and that Chitre appeared to go down after him. The Daily News reported that it’s unclear who was on the tracks first, and that a police source said investigators are trying to determine whether alcohol was involved. No findings have been announced, and the NYPD says the investigation is ongoing. The MTA confirmed the deaths to amNewYork but didn’t provide a statement.
The NYPD hasn’t named the two. A department spokesperson told NJ.com it doesn’t publicly identify people killed in incidents that aren’t considered crimes. Published reports and a statement from Rutgers University identified them as Chitre, of the Dayton section of South Brunswick, and Kaul, of Sayreville.
“We are saddened to learn of the tragic death of these two former students,” Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin told NJ.com. University records show Chitre received a bachelor of science degree in May 2024, and Kaul attended Rutgers Business School from fall 2020 to spring 2024.
The Post described them as longtime friends. Chitre worked as a quality operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and was studying to become a doctor of pharmacy, and Kaul was a financial data analyst at Bloomberg, the Post reported.
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