MUMBAI: A 20-year-old woman, deserted by her husband, delivered a baby girl on the platform at Bhayander after she was refused admission by local
maternity
hospitals on Thursday night. The mother and the newborn were later taken to Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli (W) where they are doing fine.

Aariya Khan, who sells hair clips on trains and lives near the tracks in Mira Road, said the maternity centres must have looked at her appearance and refused her admission. Khan, who earns about Rs 100 a day, had saved Rs 200 for the delivery but said she never imagined that the hospitals would turn her away because of her appearance and would not bother about her condition.

Khan started having labour pains on Thursday morning and by evening, when it worsened, she went out looking for a maternity home in Bhayander. However, most of the nursing homes
near the station reportedly turned her away.

So she returned to Bhayander station and was waiting for a train on platform 4 to get back to Mira Road around 7.30 pm when Khan went into labour. The other women on the platform swung into action and asked the men to move away. They then circled around Khan and helped her deliver the baby.

Zonal Railway Users' Consultative Committee member Shailendra Goyal happened to be on the platform at that time. "I called for the GRP and the station-master but, by the time they arrived, the woman had already delivered,'' Goyal said.

Later, a woman police constable took her to Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli.

Her husband, Khan said, deserted her after her two previous pregnancies failed.