Israfil Hossain, a booking clerk at the Kamalapur railway station who was murdered in a vault room on October 5, was probably killed by some of his co-workers before they stole nearly Tk1.7m, according to police.
On Saturday, a General Railway Police officer investigating the case said: “We have so far identified four of Israfil’s co-workers as suspects in this incident.”
Seeking anonymity, he said: “One of the four suspects has been on the run since the murder, while the othes are still on duty but remain under police surveillance.”
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Abdul Majid, officer-in-charge of railway police at Kamalapur said: “We have almost identified Israfil’s killers, there were four people involved, and all of them work at the station.”
The OC said the killers had “close contacts with Israfil, from among his other co-workers, so they probably had easy access to the vault room, which is restricted.”
He hoped that a formal disclosure on the murder would be made tomorrow but would not reveal the suspects’ identities prior to their arrests in connection with Israfil’s murder, and clarified that although Liton, the suspect who was arrested earlier, is not a railway employee, the information extracted from him has helped the police with the investigation.
Meanwhile, another official who is also part of the investigation team said: “Three of the killers knocked on the vault room door when Israfil was counting the money for advance ticket sales. Israfil opened the door and allowed them to enter the vault room, where they first spent some time gossiping, before they attacked Israfil.”
“It was a pre-planned murder because after they murdered him, they broke one of the lockers to loot Tk1.7 million and escaped locking up behind them, with duplicate keys they had procured beforehand.”
In response to queries about the possible involvement of railway employees, the OC said: “Where no one except a few specific employees or officials are allowed, the possibility of an outsider’s involvement in this murder is quite slim.” He said the suspects, including the fugitive, would be arrested within a day or two.
