In a barbaric act, a youth poured inflammable liquid on passengers killing 3 including a 2-year-old.
In a barbaric act, a youth poured inflammable liquid on passengers in the D-1 compartment of a moving Alappuzha- Kannur Executive express train(16307) at Elathur, three people,(who jumped from the train in an attempt to escape) were killed including a two-year-old child and nine other travellers including three women suffered burn injuries.
The horrific incident took place on Sunday night. Police also recovered a bag suspected to belong to the assailant from the railway track, the bag contained two mobiles and one bottle of petrol and notepads from the railway track and an investigation is going on to nab the accused.
Crucial evidence gathered from a CCTV from a nearby building shows visuals of the supposed assailant youth boarding a motorbike near the accident spot. According to police, three bodies were found on the railway track at Elathur near Korapuzha bridge on Monday around 0130 hrs and identified as Noufeek (40), a fish merchant and Rahmath (45), both from Mattanur in Kannur district and Rahmath’s sister’s daughter Sahara(2) of Chaliyam in Kozhikode.
The injured Anil Kumar (50) of Kadirur in Kannur, and his son Advaith (21) were admitted to the burn ICU at Kozhikode medical college hospital (KMCH), while Anil Kumar’s wife Sajisha (47), Aswathy (29) of Mannuthy in Thrissur district and Ruby (52) of Taliparamba in Kannur district were admitted at KMCH Meanwhile, Jyotirindranath (34) Prakash (34) were admitted in ICU and Prince (35) has been admitted in a private hospital at Kozhikode. One of the injured took medical treatment from Koyilandy hospital.
The incident took place around 2130 hrs on Sunday, when the train left Elathur railway station, a youth entered from the D-2 coach to D-1 and poured a petrol-like inflammable liquid over the sitting passengers and set the co-passengers afire.
Then he pulled the emergency chain of the compartment and the train stopped over the Korapuzha Bridge. The three passengers tried to jump from the compartment, so the bodies were found in the early hours of Monday.
According to hospital sources, all the passengers’ health conditions were stable and only they suffered around 20 per cent of burn injuries.
District Police Chief Rajpal Meena and firefighters from Koyilandy rushed to the spot and rescued the passengers and shifted them to hospitals. Railway police, City police and forensic experts collected the evidence from the coaches and bag recovered from the railway track. The dead bodies were shifted to KMCH for post-mortem.