Dies along with her baby
A mother with her three-month old daughter allegedly committed suicide early yesterday by jumping under a running train at the city’s Kamalapur Railway Station.
The deceased were identified as Shahana Islam, 35, a resident of Goran in Khilgaon, and her daughter Nishat.
Alamgir Hossain, assistant sub-inspector of Kamalapur Railway Police Station, said Shahana was feeding her child on the rail-tracks at platform no-5 when a Khulna bound intercity train Sundarban Express was crossing platform no-6.
“Without any preamble she stood up and started running towards it around 7:30am, giving witnesses the impression that she was a passenger and was trying to catch the train,” he said, adding, “When she reached the train she dived under it still holding on to her child.”
The police recovered their severed bodies from the rail tracks later in the morning.
Manik, a railway porter and a witness to the incident, said he assumed the woman was sitting on the rail track to console her crying baby as the platform was quite crowded.
“When she started running towards the train, we shouted at her forbidding her to run as it wasn’t possible for her to catch it but within moments she jumped onto the tracks with her baby”, he said.
Shahana’s family sources said she was mentally unstable.
Her husband Azharul Islam, an employee of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, said he went to bed around 2:00am after giving Shahana, her medication and found her and the child missing after he woke up at dawn for his prayers.
“We immediately started looking for them in different places and found the bodies in the railway station,” he said.
Shahana’s brother Habibur Rahman said she had been mentally sick since she became pregnant with Nishat.
Azharul Islam’s brother Abdul Hai said earlier when she was missing for days last Ramadan they found her in Chittagong.
