A 41-YEAR-OLD Bulawayo man was run over by a train three weeks ago only for his family to identify his body eight days later.
The now deceased Ian Banda (pictured) is said to have left home in the morning of 4 December and never returned, prompting family members to make a missing person report at Queens Park Police Station after he went missing for seven days.
Ian was the son of former Chronicle chief sub-editor Dan Zuze Banda. He was a BA Dual Honours Degree in English student at the Catholic University of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo.
Banda and other family members later identified the body of Ian after receiving information from the police of a corpse that had gone for eight days without being claimed. Ian’s body had been ground into pieces and was only identified through his clothes.
Police suspected a case of suicide but the now deceased’s father and other family members think he might have been thrown in front of an on-coming train.
“Although Ian is said to have jumped in front of an on-coming goods train below a flyover bridge in Queens Park at midnight we suspect foul play. Ian never left a suicide note and his iPod was never found at the scene of the accident,” said Banda.
Ian was born in Lusaka, Zambia and did his secondary education at Waddilove Mission School in Marondera and proceeded to do his Advanced Levels at Prince Edwards High School in Harare.
He did a laws degree at Rhodes University in South Africa in 1992. Ian was laid to rest at Luveve Cemetery on Thursday. He is survived by a daughter.
