The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bdnews24.com, B’baria

Robbers held up the Dhaka bound Chittagong Mail train early yesterday, murdering a train attendant and looting valuables, police and passengers said.

"I woke up hearing my fellow passengers screaming," said Iqbal Molla, general manager of the eastern railway zone and a passenger on the train. "Later I came to know about the robbery."

Passenger Md Hanif, a resident of Mainul Road, Chittagong, said told reporters that after the Chittagong Mail pulled out of Comilla railway station around dawn, eight to ten robbers wearing masks swooped on train passengers and snatched cash, gold jewellery and mobile phone sets.

When train attendant Shamsul Haque attempted to stop the looters, they killed him by slitting his throat with a knife, Hanif said.

Abdur Shikdar, another passenger critically stabbed during the train robbery, was sent to Dhaka for treatment.

As the train halted at Imambari for 50 minutes, the train robbers decamped. Police retrieved the dead body of Shamsul Haque after the mail train reached Akhaura.

Superintendent of Akhaura railway police Nibash Chandra Majhi told reporters that a one-member investigation committee, comprising Akhaura railway police inspector Wahiduzzaman, is probing the incident and has been asked to submit a report within a week.

On hearing of the incident Wednesday, railway employees gathered at Kamalapur Station in Dhaka in protest at their colleague's murder while on duty.

Senior railway official assured them of mitigating measures if they desisted from protesting.

Dhaka railway police super Abdur Rahman told bdnews24.com: "The railway employees assembled at Kamalapur protesting the murder of their colleague, but they didn't hold any demonstration."

"Senior officials talked to them and they eventually dispersed," he said.

Syed Abdul Muquit, regional transportation officer, told bdnews24.com: "The employees were justifiably unhappy over the death of their colleague and they gathered at Kamalapur Station."

Mentioning that a total of three murders have recently been committed on trains, Muquit said: "It's a sorry state of affairs when one is killed for doing one's duty."

"We want that all such incidents are thoroughly investigated and the culprits punished."

Regional railway manager Iqbal Molla claimed that weak security was the cause of such occurrences.

Akhaura railway police inspector Wahiduzzaman said investigation into Wednesday's train robbery and killing has been initiated and police are preparing to file a case in this connection, as no victim or train passenger volunteered to do so.