Two recent Rutgers University graduates, Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul, both 24, were fatally struck by a subway train in lower Manhattan on Sunday. The two were longtime friends who had recently embarked on their professional careers.
Sources close to the victims indicated that Chitre and Kaul had grown up in similar social circles and attended high school together before both graduating from Rutgers in 2024. Their LinkedIn profiles detail their early career paths: Chitre, from Dayton, New Jersey, was working as a quality operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree at Temple University. Kaul, from Sayreville, New Jersey, was employed as a financial data analyst at Bloomberg.
One friend's father, Rajnikant Pipalia, described Kaul as being of Nepali descent, with parents who immigrated to the United States approximately 30 years ago. Pipalia noted that Kaul often visited home and that he last saw him about a year prior. He expressed that there was nothing in Kaul's life to suggest he would engage in reckless behavior.
The incident occurred near the Spring Street station. Images captured at the scene showed two figures on the subway tracks before the collision.