Mohanganj Express fire: Police yet to identify 'arsonists'

While different agencies of Dhaka Metropolitan Police are collaborating with the Railway Police to identify and apprehend the arsonists who set fire to the Mohanganj Express train, no suspects have been apprehended as of Wednesday night, said Superintendent Anwar Hossain of Dhaka Railway Police.

Railway authorities filed a case against some unidentified persons over an arson attack on the passenger train in the capital on Tuesday morning that left four people, including a woman and her minor son, dead.

Khaled Mosharraf, director (guard) of Mohanganj Express, filed the case with Dhaka Railway Police Station on Tuesday night, Anwar Hossain told TBS.

The case was filed under the Special Powers Act and the Penal Code.

In the case statement, plaintiff Khaled Mosharraf said it took 15 minutes to stop the train at Tejgaon rail station after the arson attack. Unidentified miscreants set fire to three compartments of the train at 4:43am after the train left the Airport station.

The train continued moving forward and was stopped at Tejgaon station at 4:58am. The fire caused damages of Tk3 crore, according to the case statement.

Briefing reporters at his office, Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Joint Commissioner (Operations) Biplob Kumar Sarker said they have started analysing all the available CCTV footage to trace out the arsonists.

The attack was carried out to draw international attention, he said, adding that policemen were put on alert to thwart any such sabotage attempt and disrupt public security.

Meanwhile, bodies of two victims of Tuesday's train fire were handed over to their families after completing DNA identification.

The bodies of Khokon Mia, 34, and Abdur Rashid Dhali, 60, were identified on Wednesday afternoon after DNA tests as their faces and fingerprints were distorted in the fire, said Inspector Bachchu Mia, in charge of the police outpost of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

After completing post-mortems, the police handed over Khokon Mia's body to his wife Sajna and Rashid Dhali's body to his son Mamun.

Sajna, wife of Khokon Mia, said, "I came to Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue and saw two dead bodies. I recognised my husband by his clothes, marks on teeth and facial features."

Belal Ahmed, nephew of Rashid Dhalli, said, "On Tuesday morning, I came to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and identified my uncle's body. I could recognise my uncle by the amulet on his waist, the ring on his hand, and his clothes. Later, my cousin Mamun came and identified his father's body."

An official from railway police said there have been at least 15 sabotage and sabotage attempts targeting railways made in the last one and a half months. Of those, five were major incidents.

Didar Ahmed, additional inspector general and chief of railway police, told TBS that the railway police have cracked all the other recent sabotage and sabotage attempts and made several arrests.