Thiruvananthapuram, Feb. 1: A railway employee was run over by a train hours before he was to retire after 31 years of service, setting off speculation that he had killed himself to get one of his children a job on compassionate grounds.

The police, registering a case of unnatural death, did not rule out suicide from the position of the body as it lay on the tracks.

N.K. Bhaskaran, 60, a senior electrical technician with Southern Railway at Kollam, was apparently “knocked down” by the Madurai-Kollam passenger during shunting.

His colleagues, busy with preparations for his send-off, later found his severed body lying crosswise and face down on the tracks.

Sources said Bhaskaran, who left behind his wife, three sons and two daughters, had been upset that none of the children had a job. So, he may have chosen to “die in harness” to ensure that at least one got one, they claimed. Railway rules, however, do not allow jobs to be offered to the relative of an employee whose death is proved to be a case of suicide.

Railway police sub-inspector Jyotikumar said he would not be able to “categorise” the death before collecting details from Bhaskaran’s relatives. The post-mortem report would not be of much help, he said.

Colleagues said Bhaskaran, hailing from Mavelikara in Alappuzha, around 150km from here, did not want to leave his work unfinished even on his last day. “We had told him to relax,” said a colleague.