Two named accused traced but cops rule out their involvement

LUCKNOW: Two persons who were initially suspected to be involved in pushing off four minor sisters and their mother from a moving train passing through Sitapur and Lakhimpur Kheri areas have been traced and being brought to Lucknow for interrogation.

Iqbal and Izhar, who were named in the FIR, were found living at their houses in Jhakhra village of West Champaran (Bettiah) district in Bihar, said Saumitra Yadav, superintendent of police (SP), GRP, Lucknow.

Yadav said prima facie it appears that the two youths had no role in the crime but they were still being brought here so that their mobile call records could be verified before they get a clean chit.

They along with girls’ maternal grandmother, Rabeena Khatoon, will be reaching Lucknow on Saturday.

Yadav said the youths had been requested to accompany the girls’ maternal grandmother to Lucknow and help her in disposing of the two bodies and take care of the three sisters undergoing treatment in hospital.

The investigators said the girls’ father, Iddu Miya, is now the prime suspect as he is the only person who has been missing since the incident.

He said Iqbal and Izhar were named in the FIR on the basis of the statement of one of three surviving sisters, Algun Khatoon, 9.

“Algun is only one who was speaking to investigators, so police team went by her account. But it is not her fault as she suffered multiple fractures in her hand and hip-joint and her mental status is not normal still,” he reiterated.

The SP said the details so far revealed by girls’ grandmother suggest that it was Iddu Miya who accompanied her wife, Afrin Khatoon, 36, five daughters and a son on a journey to Jammu where he works as labourer.

Iddu’s wife, Afreena Khatoon, 36, and one of their daughters, Muniya, 7, died, while three other children survived the fall from Amritsar-Saharsa Express on Monday night.

The two bodies and three survivors were found at different points along the tracks between Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur and it took police a while to establish that they were from a single family.

The eldest sisters, Rabia Khatoon, is still unconscious and undergoing treatment at King George Medical College’s trauma centre and two sisters, Algun and Shamina, 4, are undergoing treatment in Sitapur district hospital.

Police and the family members are still clueless about two other kids, a daughter and a son.