The cabin from where train schedules are announced. (Charu Sudan Kasturi)

Mumbai, Nov. 29: For the first time in 10 years as a railway announcer, Vishnu Dattaram Zende had to make a split-second decision — stay silent and take cover, or use the only weapon he had to take on terror.

As terrorists entered the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) on Wednesday night, spraying bullets wantonly, Zende grabbed the microphone before him to calmly direct security forces and guide passengers towards the nearest exit.

“I am an ordinary man. I really don’t know what happ- ened but, at that moment, I just knew this was what I had to do,” Zende said, smiling sheepishly, for his cabin, 20ft above the platforms, has transformed virtually into a shrine for railway and government officials who pass through CST.

Zende and colleague Girija Shankar Tiwari helped at least a hundred passengers escape by warning them of the approaching terrorists and assisted security forces by giving them a running commentary on the location of the gunmen.

Tiwari punches out on a transmitter the train timings and destinations that then appear on electronic boards on appropriate platforms, the moment Zende announces departures.

“They could easily have taken cover like any other civilian and no one would have grudged them. Their job, after all, is to announce trains, not manage a terror situation. But they did it, and they saved well over a hundred people,” said Vijay Nair, the additional divisional secretary of the National Railway Men’s Union.

A train had just entered platform four when Zende and Tiwari first heard the firing. It was nearly 10pm. The cabin has a glass visor through which the duo caught a glimpse of what was happening.

Within a minute, Tiwari said, they saw two youths brandishing guns approach from the main station — for trains leaving and entering Mumbai — and head towards the platforms that cater to suburban trains.

His voice level, Zende — a Marathi — first began directing the security forces.

“He kept repeating in Marathi, ‘RPF and GRP personnel, please move towards the main station’, and officers who were scattered all over the station immediately started moving in that direction,” said Bhanu Ram, a shoe-shine man at the station who hid under a seat in the cabin of a parked train.

Ducking and scrambling on his knees, Tiwari — from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh — switched off the lights in the cabin and disconnected the transformers.

A bullet in the glass visor reveals that the terrorists did try to neutralise their now invisible enemy, but missed. “It was crucial to switch off the transformers because they could have caught fire and caused an explosion,” Tiwari said.

Zende switched to warning the passengers. “Kripiya saare yaatri platform number one, gate number one se nikal jaaiye (please leave the station through platform number one from gate number one.”

Platform one was farthest from the terrorists and the direction from which they were approaching, and gate number one leads out of the station from that platform.

By then, trains had also started moving into platform numbers two and one, Zende said. “People must anyway have heard the firing, but official directions confirmed to them that they must leave. Passengers ran through the parallel trains to exit from gate one,” he said.

Next, Zende and Tiwari warned other stations to stall trains and not allow them to approach CST. “All this while, my wife was calling me again and again. Initially, I thought I wouldn’t tell her, but then I decided I might as well say my goodbyes. I probably would not make it,” Tiwari laughed. Both have two children.

The terrorists at CST eventually left the station around 11pm. Tiwari and Zende came down from their cabin at 12.30am.