Five people were killed on Friday in a train that caught fire in Bangladesh, police announced, whose chief said he suspected an act of sabotage before next Sunday’s legislative elections boycotted by the opposition.
At least four cars of the Benapole Express, connecting the city of Jessore to Dhaka, caught fire, fire official Rakjibul Hasan said.
“We found five bodies,” a police official, Commander Khandaker Al Moin, told reporters.
According to witnesses, the train caught fire in Gopibagh, an old district of Dhaka located not far from the capital’s main station, the terminus of the line.
“We suspect that the fire was an act of sabotage,” police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP, without adding details.
An unnamed rescuer told private broadcaster Somoy TV that hundreds of people rushed to pull passengers from the engulfed train. “We rescued many. But the fire spread quickly,” he said.
According to Somoy TV, Indian passengers were on board the train.
In December, police and the government blamed the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), for a previous fire on board a train that left four people dead.
The BNP had denied any involvement in the fire, saying it was the subject of unjustified accusations to provide the government with pretexts to carry out a campaign of repression against the opposition.
The BNP and dozens of other opposition parties are boycotting parliamentary elections due to take place on Sunday, saying it is a farce.
Thousands of opposition activists were arrested last year after protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is seeking a fifth term.