Survey on to reopen Lalmonirhat-Moghalhat rail route 26 years after closure

Twenty-six years after the closure of the Lalmonirhat-Moghalhat rail route, railway authorities have been carrying out a survey to reopen it.

The railway officials inspected the route several times and there is also a possibility of train communication on the 10-kilometre route again, said Abdus Salam, Bangladesh Railway's Lalmonirhat divisional railway manager.

The survey was being conducted from June and a primary report was submitted to the railway ministry on October 15, he added.

The railway route, that had connections to India's Cooch Behar and Assam states, was closed in June 1996 without any prior announcement. Before independence, this route had connectivity with India. There was movement of a freight train with India from independence to 1990.

According to the locals, when the route was active, passenger trains used to run in the morning and afternoon. People in Moghalhat, especially school and college students, used to travel by train, they said.

Since its closure, the rail line remains abandoned and the stones on nine kilometres of the route were stolen. The thieves could not steal stones from the remaining one kilometre of at Moghalhat due to resistance from locals.

Hossain Ali, 90, a villager in the area, said he used to travel to India using train service through Moghalhat Railway Station. He will be happy if the rail communication resumes on the route, he added.

Moghalhat Union Parishad Chairman Habibur Rahman said Moghalhat people had appealed to the railway authorities several times demanding reopening train services on the Lalmonirhat-Moghalhat route.