Scenes of people crossing rail lines with the barriers down, without any care for safety and unfazed by an advancing train, is common. Around the city, hundreds of shops and houses have been constructed near the rail lines and, often, people are seeing lying or sitting on the lines without concern about possible dangers.
The most risky stretch is from Kamalapur to Tongi. When asked, a hotel worker crossing the line, said: “I have been crossing for ages and nothing has happened.”
Life and death are in the hands of the creator, was his fatalistic but unconcerned reply.
“When the train is near and blows a whistle, we do not cross”, say some others who were also found to be crossing the lines with the barriers down.
Between January and May this year, 304 people have died in rail accidents with 73 alone in May, according to the Railway Police.
Mozammel Huq Chowdhury, the secretary general of rights body Bangladesh Jatri Kolyan Samity told Bangla Tribune: “In a year, about 3,000 to 4,000 people die in train accidents with the number rising.”
In India, the death rate from train accidents is between 16,000 and 21,000, he added and cautioned: “Our rail lines are unprotected. Accidents will come down if security barriers are placed at key locations.”
People are not aware of the restrictions around rail lines; railway police must carry out awareness programmes, he said.
After a train accident, cases of unnatural death are lodged but never solved, he lamented.