Three people, including a two-year-old child and a woman, were found dead on a railway track at the Elathur railway station in Kerala’s Kozhikode in the late hours of Sunday night, April 2. Hours earlier, a man on board the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express allegedly tried to set fire to a co-passenger, resulting in eight people being injured. According to Mathrubhumi, the police said that the three people who were found dead on the track went missing from the train after the fire incident on Sunday.

Mathrubhumi reported that when the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express reached the Korapuzha Railway Bridge, an unidentified passenger poured inflammable liquid on a co-passenger which resulted in at least eight people on the train suffering from burn injuries. The perpetrator escaped immediately while the injured persons were taken to a nearby hospital after one of the passengers pulled the emergency chain.

According to the police, one of the injured men was looking for his wife and child. Once the train reached Kannur, the passengers filed a complaint stating that a woman and child were missing after the incident. The woman’s mobile phone and footwear were reportedly found by the passengers on the train. The police inspected the tracks after they received a complaint regarding the missing persons and found three people dead on the railway track, including the missing woman and child.

Mathrubhumi reported that the police were suspicious that the woman and child must have fallen off the train or attempted to get down as it was moving after the fire incident. The police also said that they have CCTV visuals of the suspect and an investigation to catch the perpetrator is underway.