Tk 15 lakh looted
A booking clerk was found strangled inside the booking office at the Kamalapur railway station early Saturday. The assailants also took away about Tk 15 lakh earned from advance ticket sales.
The Kamalapur GRP officer-in-charge, Abdul Majid, also suspected that the killing took place between 1:30am and 5:00am. The deceased, Israfil Hossain, 60, was a contractual employee of the Bangladesh Railway as he retired two years ago, his daughter Taslima Akhter said.
The assailants escaped with Tk 15 lakh earned from advance ticket sales, the railway’s senior information officer Shariful Alam said.
Kamalapur GRP subinspector Rafiqul Islam said that Israfil was found dead with his hands and legs tied to the chair in a booking room, which is offlimits to all but railway employees, about 5:15am.
According to the inquest report,
Israfil’s mouth was taped shut and there was a piece of cloth around the neck, with marks of strangulation. The nose was found bled, according to the inquest report.
Abdul Baten Molla, another booking clerk, said that might have been asleep.
The railways minister, Majibul Haque, visited the station where he told reporters that the ministry had set up three-member committee to investigate the matter.
The Bangladesh Railway and the Government Railway Police also instituted one committee each to investigate the incident.
Six Railway Security Force members and four GRP personnel were suspended after the incident on charge of being negligent to their duties.
GRP deputy inspector general Sohrab Hossain suspected that some from among the staff might have been involved in the murder.
He said that the incident had took place in a secure area which is offlimits to common people. ‘We, therefore, suspect that some railway people might have been involved in the incident.’
He said that the three-member GRP investigation committee had been asked to submit its report in a week.
The three-member committee that the Bangladesh Railway set up has been asked to submit the report in three days.
The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for a post-mortem examination.
The victim’s family alleged that the police after finding him dead by breaking open the door did not inform them. ‘We came to know of the incident about 9:00am from television news,’ Israfil’s son-in-law Faridul Islam, said.
Israfil, from Manikganj, had worked with the railway railway for more than two decades. After the retirement, he started working with the railway again on a contractual basis.
-With New Age input
