Bangladesh’s most important opposition BNP has demanded a UN-supervised investigation right into a hearth on a passenger practice that killed 4 folks, calling it a “pre-planned” act of sabotage forward of the final elections being boycotted by the get together.
The incident occurred round 9 pm on Friday when 4 carriages of the Benapole Specific that runs from Benapole, a city bordering the Indian state of West Bengal, had been set on hearth because it practically reached its vacation spot of the capital’s Kamalapur Railway Station.
Railway officers stated that many of the practice’s practically 292 passengers had been returning residence from India.
Shahjahan Sikder, deputy assistant director of the Hearth Service and Civil Defence Media Cell, stated they recovered 4 our bodies from the gutted coaches of the practice.
In a press release, Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) senior Joint Secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi expressed concern over the “heartbreaking incident of casualties on account of arson by miscreants on the Benapole Specific practice headed from Benapole to Dhaka”.
“There is no such thing as a doubt that the Benapole Specific practice hearth was an act of sabotage, resulting in the lack of life,” The Each day Star newspaper quoted Rizvi as saying.
He termed it an “inhuman brutal atrocity in opposition to humanity” and referred to as for a UN-supervised investigation into the incident, the paper stated.
Rizvi stated that the incident was “pre-planned” and referred to as for the fast arrest and punishment of the “perpetrators concerned”.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed deep shock and sorrow on the lack of 4 lives within the Benapole Specific practice hearth. She directed the authorities involved to analyze whether or not the hearth was an act of sabotage.
She additionally prayed for the salvation of the departed souls and directed the authorities to take fast steps for the therapy of the injured.
Bangladesh goes to polls on Sunday. Greater than 100 overseas observers, together with three from India, have reached Dhaka to observe the final election.
Led by former prime minister Khalida Zia, the BNP is boycotting the final election and it’s demanding an interim non-party impartial authorities to carry the election.
The demand was rejected by the federal government headed by Prime Minister Hasina, who’s heading the ruling Awami League.
Overseas Ministry officers stated a three-member delegation from the Election Fee of India reached Dhaka on Friday whereas 122 others from completely different nations had been set to be right here forward of the January 7 polls, which the United Nations stated would watch carefully.
Bangladesh witnessed a few train-related arson incidents in current months.
Unidentified individual on December 19 set a practice ablaze killing 4 folks, amongst them a mom and baby, amid an opposition referred to as countrywide strike on that day.
One passenger was killed and dozens wounded as saboteurs uprooted railway tracks when seven carriages derailed in Gazipur on the outskirts of the capital in early December.
On January 2, a practice carrying some 300 passengers narrowly averted a significant crash on the final minute as suspected saboteurs eliminated 28 canine spikes or hooks from the tracks on a railway bridge in northern Bangladesh.
Awami League accused the BNP of finishing up the sabotage, which the get together denied.
A college was partially broken after miscreants set it on hearth in Khulna’s Dumuria upazila on Friday night time.
Officer-in-Cost of Dumuria Police Station Sukant Saha stated miscreants set hearth to Tipna Authorities Main Faculty in Kharnia Union round 9:30 pm pondering it was a polling station.
The college library was burnt as a result of hearth.
“We’re conducting drives to arrest the miscreants,” he added.
Unidentified miscreants additionally partially burnt a passenger bus within the port metropolis’s Nayabazar-Eidgaon space on Friday night time. Nonetheless, no casualty was reported.
