Boy who climbed onto metro train roof ‘panicked after being spotted between carriages’

A boy who climbed onto the roof of a Dhaka Metro Rail train, prompting an hours-long suspension of services, did so after panicking when security staff spotted him standing between two carriages.

CCTV footage from three stations shows the boy boarding a train at TSC, travelling to Agargaon, switching trains and then positioning himself between coaches before arriving at Secretariat station, where the incident occurred on Sunday.

“He got scared and quickly climbed onto the roof when security personnel saw him between the carriages,” a Secretariat station official said.

“Because the train was stationary and he didn’t touch the live electrical line, a major accident was avoided.”

Footage released by the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project shows the boy moving rapidly between platforms, ducking between carriages, and then scrambling onto the roof as staff approached him. Security workers later used a ladder to bring him down.

Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) Managing Director Md Faruque Ahmed said the consequences could have been far worse.

“It is fortunate he was not electrocuted. Something much more serious could have happened,” he said at a media briefing on Monday.

Train operations on the metro rail’s Line 6 were halted at 8:05pm on Sunday after the boy was spotted on the roof, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Services did not resume that night.

Faruque said security teams conducted a full sweep of the entire metro line overnight to ensure no one else remained on the tracks or roof.

A “sweep train” examined the route again on Monday morning before normal services resumed.

Faruque added that while the boy had entered the train through a gap rather than a passenger door, it was not possible to assign security personnel to monitor every individual.

“We will increase vigilance. We are installing additional CCTV cameras, including beneath stations, so we can identify where someone enters,” he said.

Faruque added that the boy had been handed over to law enforcement.

“This is a matter of public security, and police are investigating,” he said.

Brig Gen (Retd) Abdul Wahab, project director for MRT Line-6, said the boy had been sent to a correctional facility.

He described the incident as extremely dangerous.

“There is a 1,500-volt overhead line. He could have died instantly,” Wahab said, urging the public to understand that climbing onto metro train roofs is “absolutely impossible”.