Three found dead on railway track after train fire incident in Kerala's Kozhikode
The bodies of three persons, which included a one-year-old child and a woman, were found on the tracks near the Elathur railway station in Kozhikode on late Sunday (April 2), after a fire incident on the train.
A man allegedly set ablaze a co-passenger and, in the process, eight other passengers were injured on board an express train, a senior police official from the district told PTI. The three had gone missing during the fire incident.
Around 9.45 pm, when the Alappuzha-Kannur executive express train reached the Korapuzha railway bridge after crossing Kozhikode city, an unidentified man poured an inflammable liquid on a co-passenger and set him on a fire. This resulted in burn injuries to at least eight persons, said police.
The man escaped soon after the incident, while the injured were shifted to hospitals after passengers pulled the emergency chain.
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When the train reached Kannur, a few passengers complained that a woman and a child were missing after the incident. “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 middle-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 about the train fire incident.
Sources said the woman was the child’s aunt. A total of nine persons have been admitted to various hospitals, including the Kozhikode Medical College, for treatment.
Further details on the train fire incident in Kozhikode are awaited.
(With agency inputs)
