India, Aug. 14 -- When Neeta Shah, a 75-year-old pedestrian, died in Malabar Hill on Tuesday after being forced to walk on the road due to the absence of a footpath and coming under the wheels of a bus, it served as a brutal reminder to Jogeshwari West resident Mansoor Darvesh about the fate that could befall residents of his area.

Darvesh, 65, has been pleading with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to construct a footpath along Swami Vivekananda Road, from Millat Hospital to the Amboli BIT Chowky, for more than three years now.

"The stretch has crazy traffic and footpaths are non-existent or hardly there," Darvesh told Hindustan Times. "Moreover, cars and bikes routinely climb onto the footpath wherever it is there, posing ...