Murder most foul: 5 women of family thrown off train in Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: A train moves around midnight, covering about 50km in less than an hour. A 36-yearold mother and her four minor daughters are pushed off a general coach at different points in between. The woman and a girl die.

And, among the suspects are the children’s uncle and his friend.

Railway police are grappling with a crime that initially led them to believe three sisters, aged between four and nine, werethrown outoftheAmritsar- Saharsa Express on Monday in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur.

On Wednesday, they discovered it was not three sisters, but four and their mother who the assailants wanted dead.

Police found the mutilated body of Afreena Khatoon along the tracks in Lakhimpur Kheri district at 3pm on Wednesday.

Around 3am on Tuesday, her seven-year-old daughter Muniya’s body was found in Sitapur, about 90km from Lucknow.

As the toll rose to two, police established that a 12-year-old girl, Rabina, they found on Tuesday near the tracks in Sitapur was the eldest daughter of the family from Motihari in Bihar.

They were on their way to Motihari from Amritsar, according to an officer.

A case of murder has been registered against the girls’ uncle, Iqbal, and his friend Izhar. Police were looking for the children’s father, Iddu. Investigators are trying to establish the motive shrouding the horrific crime and a railway police team is expected to reach Motihari to locate the family and relatives.

Hindustan Times wasnot able to contact the family for their side of the story.

Sisters Samina and Algun, aged four and nine, survived the fall. All three surviving sisters are admitted to hospital.

Police believe the mother was the first to be pushed out as the train crossed Maigalganj and approached Sitapur.

All the children were thrown out after the train crossed Sitapur, police said.

Bihar’s East Champaran police superintendent Upendra Kumar Sharma said: “The girls and their mother lived at Jhhakra village of West Champaran district. Their maternal uncle, Mohammad Imran, is being questioned by West Champaran police.”

The family is from a village under Phadpur police station of Motihari, Sharma said.