Train runs over students

Saturday October 27, 2007

TAMPIN: Two Form Two students were killed when they were run over by a freight train near Kampung Tanjung, Ulu Gadong, in Kota near here.

Five of their schoolmates, all aged between 15 and 17, escaped when they managed to jump off the tracks in the nick of time.

The seven were resting on the railway tracks when the incident occurred at about 11.45pm on Thursday.

The two killed were Fazrul Asri Zulkifli from Juasseh in Bahau and Mohd Hafiz Adnan from Masjid Tanah in Malacca.

The students of SM Agama Hj Mohamed Yatim near here only realised there was a freight train approaching them when the driver sounded the whistle.

The train was heading from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

Rembau district crime chief Asst Supt Nagappan Kuthuraman said preliminary investigations revealed that the boys could have dozed off while resting on the tracks.

ASP Nagappan said the train driver stopped to report the incident at the Tampin railway station.

He said police would record statements from the five students to find out what they were doing on the tracks.

It is learnt the students had slipped out of their hostel and gone to Kota town for supper.

Villagers at the scene of the incident said the boys would loiter along the tracks almost every night despite being advised not to do so.

Resident Mohamat Hassan, 66, whose house is located several metres from the railway line, said that between 10 and 20 boys could be seen sitting on the tracks every night.

“We have been living here for the past 40 years and this is the first time that such an incident had taken place,” he said.

School authorities refused to comment.

The boys’ remains were sent to the Tampin Hospital for post-mortem and were later released to their next of kin.