Forty three-year-old Dombivli resident and Central Railway commuter Arti Gholapkar was left brain dead after a horrifying ordeal on Thursday evening when she was returning home to her daughter.Gholapkar was standing at the footboard of a Thane-bound train that she took daily when around 7.30 pm the train made an unscheduled but not unusual stop between Ghansoli and Rabale. The mother of one was chatting away with her office colleagues from the Turbhe-based Shirt India Pvt Ltd where she works as a clerk. Unknown to her, a man armed with a fishing line and a hook was perched high on a pole just opposite her compartment. As the train halted, the thief flung out the line angling for Gholapkar’s handbag which was hanging from her shoulder.The fishing hook landed with such force that it not only pulled at her handbag, it also left her struggling for balance. In front of her horrified co-passengers' eyes, she toppled over, falling into the tall grass below. Her head hit the pole on which the thief was perched as she fell. The thief who came down the pole, and his accomplice, waiting in the tall grass, dragged her off deeper into the bushes where they took off her jewellery and rifled through her handbag before disappearing into the bushes around, leaving her bleeding near the tracks.Twenty-five commuters, many of whom were Gholapkar’s collegues, travelling on the same train, rushed back from the next station, Rabale, and took her to a hospital where doctors said the extent of her injuries was grave.“We had some idea of where she had fallen but we could not immediately locate her,” said her colleague Joseph Anthony Sebastian, 23 -- “I spotted her sandals near the pole and then we found her lying unconscious, blood oozing from her head.” These commuters then bravely stood in the middle of the tracks and stopped the next oncoming train. They, and the motorman, bundled her in and took her to Lifeline Hospital at Airoli. In view of the severity of her injuries Gholapkar was shifted to Ayush Hospital and from where to the better-equipped Criticare, Thane.“I leave home before mom does and the last conversation I had with her was in the afternoon when she called me to say that there was food in the fridge and that I need not make dinner…and now here she is fighting for life,” said Gholapkar’s daughter Raveena, left stunned by the turn of events.“Gholapkar is in a critical condition and is brain dead. We are waiting for the family to take a call,” said Dr Santosh Rathi of Criticare Hospital, who is treating her.Devanand Harap, one of Gholapkar’s colleagues, said this was the third such incident which had happened with their office staff. “In the previous two cases, the ladies were not injured and only their handbag was snatched. This is the same spot where it happens and yet the police pay no heed.”Senior inspector S. Karyekarte of Vashi GRP said a case has been registered and investigations have begun.