The tragic pair fatally struck by a subway train in Manhattan over the weekend — and whose final moments were captured in a haunting video — were longtime friends and recent Rutgers University graduates just embarking on their careers, The Post has learned.
The mystery of how and why the two promising 24-year-olds from suburban New Jersey, Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul, ended up sitting on the tracks inside the Spring Street subway station lingered days later — as friends said it was deeply out of character for the duo in the prime of their lives. “I was shocked. He was a financial analyst, doing everything right,” said Sagid Qureshi, Kaul’s next-door neighbor in Sayreville.
“From what I understand she was doing well, too – good people doing so well, with their whole lives ahead of them. It’s just so sad.”
NYPD detectives were investigating whether Chitre and Kaul may have been so intoxicated they didn’t realize until too late that a train was barreling down on them – but they also hadn’t ruled out sᩚuᩚiᩚcide, sources said.
The eerie footage – widely shared on social media – showed the pair seemingly calmly sitting on the subway track bed moments before the oncoming No. 4 train barrelled over them at around 3:15 a.m. Sunday.
One of them either fell or climed down onto the tracks inside the Lower Manhattan subway station, and the other apparently came after them to help, law-enforcement sources said.
The MTA train operator told her supervisors that Chitre appeared to be laughing as she pulled Kaul toward her while they sat on the tracks, sources said.
The operator didn’t have time to hit the brakes before the train struck Chitre and Kaul, sources said.
Police were investigating whether one or both victims were so wasted they didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until it was too late, sources said.
No sᩚuᩚiᩚcide notes were found, the sources said, though that had also not yet been ruled out as the motive.
The enigmatic circumstances compounded the shock for the families, friends and neighbors of Chitre and Kaul – who grew up in matching bucolic corners of Central Jersey suburbia.
Just 11 miles separate Chitre’s family home in South Brunswick’s sprawling Summerfield development from Kaul’s similar planned townhouse community in Sayreville’s Colony Club.
The communities also share a strong South Asian presence — a common heritage that appears to have helped connect Chitre and Kaul when they entered elite Rutgers University.
“They (Kaul and Chitre) grew up in the same world,” said Rajnikant Pipalia, whose son counted Kaul as a good pal growing up in Sayreville.
“They’re all part of the same friends circle, the same South Asian group hanging out together, enjoying the same festivals,” he said about their shared college experience.
The longtime pals both graduated from Rutgers in 2024, their respective LinkedIn accounts show.
From there, Chitre got a job as a quality operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and started studying to become a doctor of pharmacy at Temple University, according to her LinkedIn.
Chitre’s very active social media accounts are filled with heartbreakingly carefree pH๏τos and videos of her spending time with family, celebrating her dog’s birthday and going on a trip to Europe in July, complete with stops in Florence and Rome.
Her family members declined to comment and lambasted media reports about what happened in the subway station.
A neighbor, 60, near Chitre’s family home fondly remembered seeing her as a vibrant high school student.
“She used to play with the kids on the block — a bright, smart girl,” the neighbor said.
“I was shocked when I heard about this … It’s just so weird. I’m still not understanding: why on the track?”
Kaul is of Nepali descent, with his parents immigrating to the US roughly 30 years ago, Pipalia said.
A LinkedIn page for Kaul states he had worked at Bloomberg as a financial data analyst. A source with the company said Kaul was a contract worker and ended the job in May.
One of Kaul’s friends from Sayreville War Memorial High School called him a “down-to-earth guy.”
“Whenever he was around, it was really good energy,” the friend said. “He was really a cool guy — just down to earth, goofy, funny, and very charismatic as well. It’s just so 𝘴h☉𝔠king.
“You’re just starting your life and then suddenly this happens, and pardon my language but it’s like, s–t.”
The tᩚraɢedy came just a little over a week after MTA worker and mom of three Moet McCullum, 41, was killed when a D train fatally struck her at the 161st Street-Yankee Stadium.
McCullum, a construction flagger — who alert oncoming-train operators of active work zones — was on southbound tracks around 11:30 p.m. Sept. 3 when she was hit, MTA officials said.
The number of subway trains colliding with straphangers, whether fatally and not, rose dramatically since 2018, The City Reporter first outlined in 2024.
During 2023, MTA officials tallied 241 people hit by trains, the report states. Of those, 97 were fatal.
When asked how many people this year were struck and killed by subway trains, MTA officials referred The Post to their counterparts at the NYPD. Police officials didn’t immediately respond.
The city’s medical examiner didn’t respond for comment on the cause of dєatᩚh for Chitre and Kaul.
Like others who knew Chitre and Kaul, Pipalia was still struggling to understand what happened.
“There’s nothing in his life that would make him do anything stupid,” he said.
