Dhaka, Dec. 19, (dpa/GNA) – Unknown arsonists torched a passenger train in Dhaka on Tuesday, killing at least four people, amid a nationwide general strike in Bangladesh called by the opposition.

Firefighters retrieved the bodies of four passengers, including a woman and her 3-year-old child, from inside one of the three burned-out carriages, police officer Mohammad Mohsin said.

The incident occurred early Tuesday as the train left the airport station and was approaching its final destination in Dhaka, he said. 

Anwar Hossain, a senior officer at the railway police unit, described it as an act of sabotage with suspected links to the opposition’s nationwide strike, which was called ahead of the country’s general elections next month.

An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the fire, he said.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Khaleda Zia called the strike for Tuesday as part of its demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The BNP hopes that Hasina’s resignation would then pave the way for the installation of non-party caretaker administration to oversee the January 7 general elections. 

The BNP and its right-wing allies are boycotting the elections, fearing that the polls will be rigged. They have been enforcing staggered strikes and transport blockades to press their demands. 

Of Tuesday’s incident, Hossain said the railway staff members failed to extinguish the flame when they first spotted it at a corridor of the two train coaches. 

The fire spread soon and burned the adjoining coaches before it was stopped at Dhaka’s Tejgaon station where three firefighter units took nearly an hour to douse the flame. 

On December 13, one person was killed and many others wounded after the derailment of seven train compartments after suspected saboteurs uprooted rail tracks in Gazipur near Dhaka. 

GNA