After railway deaths, Sri Lanka will start arresting people taking selfies on train tracks

Sri Lanka is coming down hard on selfies.

The country's railway authorities have announced they will start arresting people taking selfies on the tracks, or in front of moving trains.

This crackdown follows the recent death of a 12-year-old boy who died while taking selfies in the capital city of Colombo.

The boy and his 24-year-old brother, who subsequently died from the accident, were attempting to take selfies while standing on railway tracks.

In the same week, a newlywed man in Colombo was hit by an oncoming train, as he tried to take a selfie with his wife while standing on the tracks. The woman remains in intensive care.

Mobile phones accounted for most of the 28 deaths that have happened on Sri Lanka's railways so far this year, according to a railway spokesman.

"There are some who want to post videos and pictures of themselves in front of moving trains," spokesman Wijeya Samarasinghe of Sri Lanka Railways told AFP.

"Unfortunately, some are unable to get out of the way in time and get killed."

However, Sri Lanka's neighbour, India, still logs the highest frequency of selfie-related deaths.

Some 76 people died of selfie-related causes in India over a two year period, the highest number in the world, according to a joint study from Carnegie Mellon University, and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Delhi.