The Masked Man of Moglabazar

--Ziauddin Choudhury

In our boyhood and youth, our cousin Humayun Bhaisab, would regale us with spooky
stories that he would blatantly claim he had either himself witnessed or swear that these
were seen by someone that he knew very well. A consummate story teller, Humayun B
was always ready with new stories—and we did not care if the stories he narrated were
real or not.

I caught up with Humayun B during my last visit to Sylhet, which was after fourteen
years. All those years had taken a toll upon us all, including Humayun B in that we all
have matured in years and this showed in our looks. But what had not diminished was the
spirit to have a good time telling stories and have a great adda as usual. To my extreme
delight I found that those additions in years have led to a growth in Humayun B’s
repertoire of creepy, spine-chilling stories. I will recount here only one of the many that I
heard from him.

Moglabazar is a village about a couple of miles away from our ancestral Char
Mohammadpur. This otherwise non-descript place would have been another of the many
villages dotting our ancestral neighborhood, had it not been also for a railway station
there. This is the first station going out of Sylhet, and conversely the last station before
reaching Sylhet town. Normally, mail or express trains avoided this forlorn place.
Passengers for this station as destination would have to ride on locals, or the daring ones
would hitch a free ride in a freight train (known as goods train in Bangladesh) from
Sylhet, and jump off the train at Moglabazar as the train moved nearly at walking pace
when it passed through the station.

Humayun B was a frequent traveler between Sylhet and Moglabazar in his college days,
mostly as a free rider in the freight trains operating through Moglabazar. He attended
MM College (where his father was a Vice Principal) in Sylhet town, and his class timings
were such that these coincided with the goods train schedule. Every morning he would
jump into a compartment that be would be empty with an open door (strangely, many had
such open doors), get his ride into Sylhet; and hit it back to Moglabazar in a similar
fashion in the evening. He chose return trips in the evening since it was easier to slip into
the train and get off un-noticed.

It was in one such trip back home that Humayun B noticed another passenger in a
compartment that he normally found to be unoccupied by any other soul. (Normally most
free riders took an earlier train.) This passenger was sitting in one corner with a small
cloth bag near his side, but with his back to the door. Humayun B thought probably the
other occupant was a rider who had missed the earlier freight train. However, Humayun
B wanted to get social, and politely asked the passenger his destination. As the person
turned towards him to answer, Humayun B observed with great surprise that he was
wearing a mask, the kind that clowns in village jatras wore. In a rather strange voice he
said that he was going to Fenchuganj, one station after Moglabazar. Stranger still was the
fact that the man talked to Humayun B with his mask still on. Humayun B was about to
ask the man the reason he was wearing the mask; but he had to jump off as the train had
reached Moglabazar.

Humayun B would ride the same train two evenings later. He had already forgotten
about the masked man, and had ridden into an empty compartment toward the end of the
train. As he was standing near the door as usual, his attention was drawn by a coughing
sound from the interior. Again, this was the same masked man, but this time he was
standing in a corner. “Oh, we meet again” said Humayun B overcoming his surprise. The
man nodded, but said nothing. This time Humayun B observed that the mask (a very
grim face with bushy eye brows) was almost glued to the man’s face with nary a trace of
any string. It portrayed a man in great pain or anger. Unable to withhold his curiosity
any longer, Humayun B asked the man why he had kept on wearing a mask all the time.
“You do not want to know”, was the short answer from the man. Humayun B did not
proceed any further. He simply got off the train without even looking at his co-
passenger.

The next evening when boarding the goods train from Sylhet Humayun B secretly wished
that he would meet with the masked man again so that he could delve into the mystery.
His wishes were fulfilled as indeed the masked man was there in the lonely compartment,
and there were only two of them. Humayun B offered his greetings to the man to which
he again responded with a nod. Humayun B was determined to get the mask story from
the man; but he decided on a cautious approach. He asked the man what kind of trade or
job he did. “Oh this and that, mainly trading between Fenchuganj and Sylhet”, he
replied. Humayun B also found out that the man had a shop in Fenchuganj. He also
noticed with great curiosity that the man spoke in a hollow voice that came from deep
inside. But before Humayun B could ask the question that was tormenting his mind, the
man himself said, “You wanted to know why I wear the mask?” As Humayun B was
about to nod his head, the man took off his mask to reveal no actual face behind it. It was
a hideous sight; a white skull in the dark! “I want revenge”, the masked man hissed.
Humayun B gave out a loud shriek and fell off the train.

Fortunately for Humayun B the Moglabazar station was not far from where he had fallen.
Also, he did not sustain any injuries as the train was in a really low speed. He dusted off
his pants, and quietly walked to his home. He did not tell a word to any one of this eerie
experience. He also started to avoid the goods train for some time.

It was by accident that Humayun B got to the bottom of the masked man mystery. A few
days later when he started to gain his courage back, he started to use the goods train once
again. But this time he purposely boarded the earlier train when there were other free
riders. On his trip he heard a group of people talking about a gruesome murder that had
taken place in the 7 P.M. goods train (the one that Humayun B used to take) several
weeks ago. A man suspected to be a smuggler was found killed in an empty compartment
by the police. His face was totally destroyed by the killer presumably with repeated knife
wounds. The story went that the killer was apparently a partner of the same trade as the
victim.

Humayun B was startled by the story. At the same time he was wondering if the masked
man that he had met was actually the spirit of the murdered man. He also heard a few
people talking about a masked person jumping of the night goods train here and there.

It was after a few weeks after the murder story and the masked man incidents had
somewhat died down, the railway officials and police discovered a dead body near the
train track of Moglabazar, with a severely disfigured face. Police identified the body to
be that of the partner of the smuggler who had been murdered before in the night goods
train. Police tried in vain to look for a masked man who the train guard had seen jump
off the train at Moglabazar the previous evening. The Police and railways officials did
not know, but Humayun B knew that the masked man had his revenge.

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