KARACHI, April 24: A 21-year-old student on Thursday committed suicide by lying on a railway track and allowing a train to pass over his neck, witnesses and police said.

Witnesses said the young man, clad in dark grey shirt and white trousers, lay down on the tracks near City Railway Station at around 12:10pm when Quetta-bound Bolan Mail was moving towards the platform for departure from the washing lane.

The victim’s elder brother, Asim Sultan, told Dawn that Tauseef was an external student of BCom and ended his life due to joblessness. “I could never imagine that he would end his life this way,” added the visibly shattered brother as tears rolled down his cheeks.

The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital in an Edhi ambulance. The medico-legal officer (MLO) said the head had severed from the body. “It appeared he committed suicide by allowing the train run over his neck, decapitating him,” he added.

An Edhi volunteer, Shoaib, said the victim’s chopped head was stuck under the wheel of the train and the body was lying close by. “A few people dared to get a little close to the scene but drew back in horror when they saw the beheaded body,” he added.

The victim’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Saheef, told Dawn that the victim was the youngest among seven children of Jalil Ahmed, a retired Wapda employee living in Sector 5A of North Karachi. “Tauseef was the favourite uncle of his nieces and nephews,” he added.

“He was a cheerful person. I just can’t understand what made him end his life,” he said.

He said the victim’s father had gone to visit his eldest son in Larkana, where he was employed in Wapda. “The funeral will be held after the return of his father,” he added.

ASI Mohammed Suleman of the Railway City police told Dawn that the police found Rs702 and an identity card in the victim’s pocket.

The identity card showed that the victim had taken admission to the Classic Education System for BCom classes on March 28.

Couple’s death

A Bengali-speaking couple, parents of eight children, was suffocated in their underground water tank in Korangi.

Their bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where the victims were identified as Luqman, son of Taj Uddin, 40, and Gulbahar, 30.

Area people told Dawn that Luqman, a labourer, started suffocating as he went into the water tank of his house in Zia Colony for cleaning it. They said he called his wife for help and she also went down to meet the same fate.

Area people said the man and his wife died due to suffocation before they could be taken out from the tank.

Suspect killed, accomplice held

A suspected carjacker was killed and his accomplice wounded and arrested following a shootout with a constable near the Board of Secondary Education, police said.

North Nazimabad police said three bandits on two motorcycles intercepted Agha Jalal, a transporter, who was on his way in his car (KDM-7900), and held him hostage at gunpoint at around 11am.

They said the victim, who was also armed with his licensed pistol, ran into a nearby bank to seek help from a police guard.

The police said constable Mohammed Sadiq and the victim came out of the bank and challenged the fleeing dacoits. They said one of the dacoits was killed and the other injured in the shootout, while the third accomplice fled the scene under the cover of fire.

The dead and the injured were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the dead suspect was identified as Mohammed Zahid alias Riaz, son of Mukhtar Ahmed, resident of Saeedabad, and the injured as Mohammed Rafique alias Rustum Karim, resident of Green Town.

Hospital sources said suspect Zahid received a fatal bullet wound in his chest, while Rustum sustained a bullet wound in his right knee.

The police said the injured suspect identified their escaped accomplice as Mohammed Aamir.

They said a case (FIR No. 213/08) was registered against the suspects under Sections 392, 397, 353, 324, 186, 427 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

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