Kozhikode: Three people, including a one-year-old child and a woman, were found dead on the tracks near the Elathur railway station in Kozhikode, hours after a man allegedly set afire a co-passenger and injured eight others on board an express train. An unidentified man poured an inflammable liquid on a co-passenger and set him on a fire resulting in burn injuries to at least nine persons, police said.
The attack took place inside the D1 coach of the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express around 9 pm on Sunday night. While all the injured were rushed to hospitals after a passenger applied the emergency brake by pulling the chain, the suspicion of at least two persons – a woman and an infant – missing in the commotion had been raised by fellow passengers. A senior police official said that the bodies of a woman, a child and a man were recovered from the tracks late Sunday night.
‘A man, who was injured, kept looking for a woman and a child. We found footwear and a mobile phone of that woman’, a passenger told the media at Kannur. Soon after the news of the missing persons came out, the city police inspected the tracks and found three bodies, including the woman and the child and a mid-aged man. Police suspect they fell off the train or attempted to deboard after seeing the fire.
‘The woman and the child who went missing were found dead on the tracks. There is one unidentified body of a male. We have found CCTV visuals of the suspect. Investigation is on’, a senior police official of the district said. Sources said the woman was the child’s aunt. Meanwhile, at least four of the injured have been shifted to the Intensive Care Units (ICU) of Kozhikode Medical College Hospital and a private hospital in the city. The condition of at least two is serious. Kozhikode Mayor Beena Philip said that according to police sources the suspect had attempted to set a woman passenger on fire.
Post Your Comments