Train torched in Ctg
2 held; 4 railway officers suspended
A security guard stands amid burnt down seats of Dhaka-Chittagong Subarna Express train after miscreants torched it at Chittagong Railway Station Tuesday morning. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das
Miscreants set fire to five compartments of a Dhaka-Chittagong inter-city train at the Chittagong Railway Station Tuesday morning.
None was injured as there was no passenger inside the train—Subarna Express—at 4:35am when the arson took place, reported our Chittagong correspondent.
Law enforcers detained two persons—Mohammad Ehsan, 23, and Mohammad Mithu, 25—for their alleged involvement with the arson, said Ahsan Habib, officer-in-charge of Government Railway Police (GRP) at Chittagong Railway Station.
Ehsan is a student of a private university in Dhaka. He went to the railway station to see off his sister, our correspondent reported, adding that Mithu is a vendor.
The train was scheduled to leave for Dhaka at 7:00am.
Some unidentified men set the blaze pouring petrol on the train around 4:45am, said Ahsan Habib.
The fire soon spread to whole of each of the compartments.
On information, six fire fighting units from Nandankanon and Agrabad fire stations rushed there in five minutes.
The firefighters managed to douse the fire after one hour of hectic effort, said Fazlul Kader, telephone operator of Chittagong headquarters of Fire Service and Civil Defence.
Later, railway authorities disjoined the five burnt compartments.
Two additional compartments were added to accommodate all the passengers, said Rokonuzzaman, divisional commercial officer of Bangladesh Railway (east zone).
The train started for its destination around 8:45am.
The fire caused the Railway a loss of nearly Tk 6 crore, said Rokonuzzaman.
The railway authorities formed a four-member committee headed by Rokonuzzaman to probe the fire.
The committee has been asked to submit its report by Wednesday.
The train set out for Dhaka nearly two hours behind its schedule.
The detainees were interrogated in the Chittagong GRP office.
Meantime, the railway authorities suspended four employees for negligence in their duties, Mia Jahan, chief operating officer of Bangladesh Railway (East Zone) told The Daily Star.
The four are: railway master Mahbubur Rahman, and security guards Monjurul Alam, Md Jasim and Rayhan Ali.
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