Mystery shrouds deaths of father-daughter in Rajshahi

Mystery shrouded over the deaths of a man and his daughter in Rajshahi city yesterday.

The deceased were identified as Kamruzzaman Rubel, 30, an auto-rickshaw driver of Dharampur area and his two-and-a-half-year old daughter Rumaiya Khatun.

Police recovered Rubel’s body -- , chopped into three pieces -- from the railway track at Jamalpur area in the city. Rumaiya, who was supposedly in her father’s lap, was found severely injured and was declared dead at Barind Medical College Hospital, police said.

At the time of filing this report yesterday evening, neither railway police nor law enforcers from Chondrima Police Station made a visit to the deceased’s home -- putting the onus on each other.

Rubel’s wife Aleya Begum told newsmen that her husband along with their child jumped in front of a running train, failing to pay instalments of his loans.

She said Rubel sent her an SMS half an hour before his death, in which he wrote that she is going to find two bodies on a railway track moments later.

The incident occurred at 2:30pm when a Khulna-bound train hit the father-daughter duo as they were crossing the track without noticing the train, Sub-inspector Moshiur Rahman of General Railway Police said, quoting an elderly witness.

“They were walking by the side of the railway track and the train ran them over when they tried to cross the track,” he said.

Asked why anyone would walk along the track while there is no walkway at the location where the incident happened, the police officer said, “Many people walk along railway tracks.”

He said police were yet to visit the victims’ home as Rubel’s brother Robin had met railway police over the matter.

Rubel’s wife said he was paying off the money borrowed from four NGOs and the weekly instalments were about Tk 1,700.

“It was our only burden,” she said, adding that NGO officials were putting pressure on him and they used to create a scene, visiting their home often, when he failed to pay the instalments.

“He took his life before the NGO officials could visit our home today,” she said.

During a visit to Jamalpur area, this correspondent met three eyewitnesses.

Jomela Begum, 48, one of the witnesses and dweller of a slum beside the railway track, said she saw the man (Rubel) sitting under a tree near the track.

“I didn’t realise he was waiting for the train,” she said, adding “Had I known, I would have taken away the child from him.”

Moments later, some locals began shouting that someone jumped in front of the train and died.

“Then I saw pieces of a corpse on the track,” she said.