An express train mowed down three tribal teens in Bihar’s Banka district on Monday after they apparently slept on the railway tracks.

The incident occurred on the tracks near Paprewa Kala under the Katoria police station. The deceased have been identified as Maniklal Murmu, 18, Arvind Murmu, 16, and Sitaram Murmu, 15. They were residents of Udaipura village in the area.

According to the families of the deceased, all of them had gone to see off Maniklal’s elder brother Naveen Murmu, who was going as a ‘dak bum’ — a devotee of Lord Shiva who carries the Ganga water from Sultanganj (Bihar) to Deoghar (Jharkhand) by running or walking non-stop a distance of around 105km — during the ongoing Hindu month of Sawan.

“All of them had gone to see Naveen off as the pilgrimage is a difficult one. They had set out from home at around 4am, left him on the pilgrimage route around 5km away, and were returning. I had talked to my son on mobile phone at around 6am, but got information about his death soon afterwards,” Manik and Naveen’s mother Reena Murmu told reporters at the place where the mishap occurred.

The boys were returning home on foot after seeing off Naveen on his pilgrimage and chose to walk along the train tracks as they provide a clean and clear path devoid of mud, water pools and shrubs during the rainy season.

“It seems that the three boys became tired and sat down on the tracks to rest, and possibly fell asleep. One Deoghar–Agartala Express came on the tracks at around 6am and ran over them,” Katoria SHO Maheshwar Rai said.