Akmal, a resident of Malda, West Bengal was fatally stabbed in the Guwahati Express, minutes after it left the City Railway station, on December 29 last year by a gang of four men, who after stabbing him, fled with around Rs 70,000 cash, which Akmal was carrying on his person, from a moving train.

The GRP had registered a case under Sections 397 (causing robbery with injury) and 302 (murder) of the IPC.
“We are now planning to hand over the case to the CCB because the criminals are most likely from the City. Also, we don’t have enough manpower to track individual cases,” said  K H Sreenivasan, SP, GRP.

The Railway Police managed to crack Akmal’s case within a week’s time after Akmal’s cousin Mohammed Nuhu, who was also travelling with him in the train, identified four young men in the CCTV footage, who had fatally stabbed Akmal. “They are aged around 25 years and are most likely from Toobarahalli area in Marathahalli.

There are a lot of construction workers in that area. majority of them are migrants.

They might have got the information that Akmal was carrying hard cash with him because Akmal and his family stayed with a family from Malda who are living in Toobarahalli,” said the officer.

The DG&IGP will decide on whether the case can be transferred to the CCB.

Akmal was accompanied by wife Ameera Bibi, daughter Sareena Khatun, and cousin Mohammed Nuhu (60).

They had come to collect the compensation of Akmal’s son, who had died in a road accident one and half years ago.

As per the rule, a major chunk of the money was deposited in the fixed deposit and the rest given to the family members.

“Out of that, they paid the lawyer’s fee and other expenses and were left with around Rs 71,000, which they were  carrying back home to Malda,” said Sreenivasan.

HOT ON ATTACKERS’ HEELS

The GRP is also very close to cracking the case in which Rasheeda was assaulted by some men on Mysore-Bangalore train. “She told us four people attacked her. We have identified three of them and are on the lookout for the fourth. We will book them them,” said a senior GRP officer. He said the accused are youths who laze around railway platforms to while away their time and make a quick buck. They however, maintained Rasheeda was not a bona fide railway passenger because she had no business to be in the train during the departmental transit.
Rasheeda had jumped off the moving train followed by her two children after she was assaulted.