Stealthy death at night

A 17-month-old baby miraculously survived after a truck crashed into a slum house on the Dhaka-Barisal highway, killing all five members of his family in their sleep early yesterday morning.
The baby, Sagor Das, was sleeping with his family members when the driver of the poultry-feed laden truck lost his balance and ran into the hut at Baichhkhola village in Gournadi upazila.
The dead were identified as rickshaw van puller Khokon Das, 26, his wife Tapoti Rani Das, 22, his mother Radha Rani Das, 47, brother Ratan Das, 11, and his relative Biren Karmakar, 62.
The truck driver and his helper fled the scene as local people rushed to the spot to help.
Later, highway police and fire service personnel reached the spot and recovered the bodies of the victims who were crushed beneath the load of the truck and its goods.
Police sent the bodies to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital for postmortem.
Md. Amiruzaman Amin, officer in charge of Gournadi police station and Moazzem Hossain, in charge of Gournadi highway police post said that Khkonon Das had come from India some 12 years ago and settled illegally in the area.
The orphaned baby has been taken by his maternal grandmother who lives in Kuriana village under Shorupkathi upazila in Pirojpur.