Tuesday, May 1, 2012 A Swiss expatriate and his brother died when an ambulance rammed into a CNG-run auto-rickshaw at Banani on New Airport Road in the capital yesterday morning, during hartal hours.

Deceased Ilias Miah, 44, and his brother Nasiruddin Munshi, 42, were heading towards Nawabganj district in Dhaka in an auto-rickshaw as they considered it too risky to ride on a motor vehicle during hartal.

Police rushed the three, including injured auto-rickshaw driver Nantu, 28, to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) where the doctors declared the brothers dead.

Nasiruddin went to receive his brother Ilias, who had arrived in Dhaka yesterday at 9:00am, from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Sharif Hossain Sohag, a cousin to the deceased told The Daily Star.

As they approached Road 27, a vacant ambulance coming from the opposite direction made a sudden u-turn and collided with their auto-rickshaw.

The auto-rickshaw was smashed while the front portion of the ambulance was badly dented, said Sub-Inspector Emdadul Islam of Banani Police Station who was on patrol duty in the area.

The ambulance lost its balance and both the vehicles were found perched on the road divider, added Emdadul.

Police seized the ambulance and detained its helper Mohammad Faruq, 20. The driver of the ambulance managed to flee the scene.

Faruq said, they had arrived from Dhanmondi and made the u-turn to head for the gas station when the accident occurred.

Ilias Miah had been living in Switzerland for the last 20 years where he worked at a restaurant. He had come to Bangladesh to visit his wife and eight-year-old daughter.

His brother Nasiruddin, owner of an engineering workshop at Nawabganj, also left behind a wife and two sons.

Their bodies will be taken from DMC morgue to the village home of the deceased for burial today.

The deceased have two more brothers living in Switzerland and Italy who would be arriving here today.

Relatives of the deceased blame the hartal for the untimely demise of the two brothers, saying that the hartal compelled them to travel in an auto-rickshaw on the highway though it was not safe.