Man found dead on railway track, Bharuch police suspect friend

The Bharuch Railway police are investigating the death of a labourer from Uttar Pradesh, Santosh Ramkishan Kori, whose body was found along the railway tracks near Sanjeli village in Ankleshwar in Bharuch district. Police said the contradictory statements given by Santosh’s friend, Ashok Yadav, who was also injured in the incident, make them suspect him.

According to an officer of the Bharuch railway police, early on Tuesday morning villagers in Sanjeli found Ashok in an injured condition and shifted him to the Bharuch Civil Hospital where he is being treated for a fracture in his left arm. When the police arrived to record his statement, Ashok first said that Santosh and he were returning to UP as they had not found any work in Ankleshwar GIDC, and they had boarded a train from Ankleshwar to Surat. They were accosted by robbers on a train to Surat, while they were sitting in the gangway near the lavatory of a sleeper coach. “Ashok recorded his first statement at the civil hospital stating that four persons had approached them on a train — the name of which, he didn’t remember — and demanded that the duo part with their belongings or they would be thrown off the running train. He said that the men demanded money at knife point, following which they were thrown off the train near Sanjeli station,” an officer of the Bharuch railway police said.

Immediately, police sub-inspector U C Markand began investigating Ashok’s claims and recovered Santosh’s body from a nallah. When the police questioned Ashok again, he confessed that he had fabricated the story about the robbers as, in reality, the two had met with an accident while walking along the railway track. The police officer said, “Ashok later told us that they were walking from Sanjeli to Ankleshwar station along the tracks and did not spot an oncoming train.” The police are now investigating Ashok’s role in the incident.