On Monday, April 3, Kerala awoke to the news of an arson attack on a reserved compartment of the Alappuzha Kannur Executive Express (16307) that had taken place the previous night. Shortly after came the news of three deaths, including that of a woman and her two-year-old niece. Almost two days after the incident, the attack, the attacker, and the deaths remain shrouded in mystery. As the police and local residents try to piece together the puzzle, TNM visited Elathur, a small town in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, where the incident unfolded on Sunday night. Here is all we know about the case so far.
Around 12 km north of Kozhikode city lies Elathur, with a tiny railway station where only local passenger trains stop. On the fateful Sunday of April 2, the Alappuzha Kannur Executive Express train left Kozhikode station around 9.13 pm, and crossed Elathur in 14 minutes, at full speed. According to the staff at the Elathur station, they saw the train stop around 150-200 m from the station, with some of its coaches on top of the Korapuzha bridge. Someone had pulled the emergency chain to stop the train. It was later learned that passengers had pulled it after they saw fire from one of the coaches of the train.
Witness accounts state that a man on coach D1, a reserved compartment, sprayed an inflammable liquid suspected to be petrol on the passengers and lit fire. It immediately caused panic and everyone started running amok. While some passengers did not realise what was happening, some others thought the person was about to kill himself. “Nobody understood anything. They were in extreme fear and panic. None of the statements from the people in the compartment were clear. Even before they realised anything, the fire had been set,” an officer from the Railway Protection Force (RPF) told TNM.
The ticket examiner on duty later said that the attacker had not booked a seat in D1. The attacker must have either been travelling without a ticket or entered D1 from another coach. Further details are unknown at the moment.
More details on the attacker came out through Raziq, one of the passengers on D1. “The person wore a red shirt, and carried two bottles with him. The prime witness Raziq had seen the person standing near the lavatory when he boarded the train from Feroke,” a civil police officer from Elathur police station told TNM. “In the rush and panic that followed the fire, no one noticed the attacker,” the officer added. He is suspected to have escaped when the train stopped after the emergency chain was pulled.
The rescue mission was made difficult by the fact that several of the train’s coaches were atop the Korapuzha bridge, with D1 also nearly on top, when it made the emergency stop.
Within 30 minutes after the train stopped, five passengers who had burn injuries were shifted to the Government Medical College Hospital and three to the Baby Memorial Hospital in Kozhikode. A total of nine passengers, including Raziq, sustained burns in the attack. Almost an hour later, the train resumed the journey and reached Koyilandy station. All was calm until Raziq realised that his neighbours, two-year-old Zahra Bathool and her maternal aunt Rahmat, were missing from the coach. “Eye witnesses said that even though Raziq had burn injuries on his legs, he refused to go to a hospital as he was in search of the missing pair, who he had accompanied. Raziq was their neighbour in Mattannur,” a police officer said.
Despite launching a search immediately, the police were unable to find the missing persons. Hours later, the loco pilot of a train that followed on the same route noticed two bodies on the track between the Korapuzha bridge and Elathur station.
Upon receiving this information from the loco pilot, the police searched the area and recovered the bodies of Zahra, her aunt Rahmat, and a third passenger who was later identified as Noufeeq, on the railway tracks. The primary findings of the postmortem indicate that the three died due to injuries to their heads, likely sustained during the fall from the moving train. There were no burn injuries on them. According to the police, the trio must have either jumped off the moving train in the panic caused by the attack or tripped and fallen while running from the fire.
Zahra and Rahmat were on their way to the child’s maternal home in Kannur’s Mattannur from her house in Kozhikode’s Kadalundi. Noufeeq, a dry fish merchant who also worked at a mosque, was returning from a religious event held in Malappuram as part of Ramzan.
Police also recovered a bag from the tracks, from which they found a bottle of liquid suspected to be petrol, a mobile phone, and two diaries, which contained writings in English and Hindi. The diaries also contained the names of a few places in Kerala and some personal notes.
Earlier on Monday, a CCTV visual from Elathur had gone viral, allegedly of the suspect. It was later confirmed that the man in the video was not the attacker but a student who was travelling to Mangaluru.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan issued a statement on Monday, calling the incident shocking. He ordered the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the attack. Following this, Director General of Police Anil Kant formed an 18-member SIT under Malappuram Crime Branch Superintendent of Police P Vikraman, to be supervised by Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) MR Ajith Kumar.
A composite sketch of the suspect’s face, drawn on the basis of witness accounts, was released by the police on Monday. The police are tight-lipped on the details of the case and the investigation.
RPF Inspector General TM Iswara Rao said, “There are certain gaps in the case. We will provide all assistance to the state police.”
Police have reportedly identified the attacker as Shahrukh Saifi, a migrant labourer from Noida, Uttar Pradesh. However, ADGP Ajith Kumar told the media that the investigation is in the primary phase and that the name of the suspect has not been confirmed yet. He also said that no one has been taken into custody yet.
As more details of the attack emerged over the past two days, suspicions of a terror attack were also raised. The National Investigation Agency officials visited the spot to gather information.
Meanwhile, reports emerged that the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Uttar Pradesh police apprehended a person in Bulandshahr based on a tip-off and later released him. RPF officials from Kerala had travelled to Uttar Pradesh to look into this.