{"id":346580,"date":"2026-09-14T18:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T18:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346580\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T18:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T18:58:11","slug":"tragic-nyc-duo-killed-in-subway-crash-idd-as-longtime-friends-recent-rutgers-grads-just-starting-out-in-their-careers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346580\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragic NYC duo killed in subway crash ID&#8217;d as longtime friends, recent Rutgers grads just starting out in their careers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tragic pair <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/09\/13\/us-news\/young-man-and-woman-caught-on-video-sitting-on-nyc-subway-tracks-before-being-fatally-struck\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fatally struck by a subway train in Manhattan<\/a> over the weekend were longtime friends and recent Rutgers University graduates just starting out in their careers, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/09\/14\/us-news\/doomed-pair-struck-by-nyc-subway-may-have-been-so-drunk-or-high-they-didnt-hear-oncoming-train-sources\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul<\/a>, both 24 and from New Jersey, traveled in the same circles at Rutgers and beyond, said Rajnikant Pipalia, whose son counted Kaul as a good pal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey (Kaul and Chitre) grew up in the same world,\u201d Pipalia said.<\/p>\n<p>Navam Kaul is seen in an undated Facebook photo.  Facebook\/Navam Kaul<\/p>\n<p>Malaika Chitre is pictured with her dog. Chitre and Navam Kaul were struck and killed by a subway train. TikTok\/mal<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re all part of the same friends circle, the same South Asian group hanging out together, enjoying the same festivals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The longtime pals both graduated from Rutgers in 2024, their respective LinkedIn accounts show.<\/p>\n<p>The two were spotted sitting on the subway tracks at the Spring Street Station on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>From there, Chitre, of Dayton, NJ, 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.<\/p>\n<p>Kaul, of Sayreville, NJ,\u00a0 worked as a financial data analyst at Bloomberg, his LinkedIn states.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey all did college very well, studied, moved on to Fortune 500 companies,\u201d Pipalia said.<\/p>\n<p>Malaika Chitre is seen in an undated LinkedIn photo.  Facebook\/Malaika Chitre<\/p>\n<p>Navam Kaul is seen in an undated Instagram photo.  Instagram\/Nav<\/p>\n<p>Pipalia said Kaul is of Nepali descent, with his parents immigrating to the US roughly 30 years ago. He last saw Kaul about a year ago, as his son\u2019s friend often visited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s nothing in his life that would make him do anything stupid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tragic pair fatally struck by a subway train in Manhattan over the weekend were longtime friends and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1015,57,141,9,24,56,63,65,64,615,58],"class_list":["post-346580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-deaths","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-subway","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}