MUMBAI: In an early morning tragedy in a moving train today, a jawan of the Indian Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable named Chetan Singh first shot dead his senior colleague, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Tika Ram Meena and went to adjoining bogies and shot dead three passengers at Vaitarna railway station close to Virar in Mumbai.

The constable identified by the Government Railway Police (GRP) as  Chetan Singh (34)  along with 3 of his colleagues, of an escort team including, Narendra Parmar, Amay Acharya and Meena boarded the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express at about 2.40 am from Surat.

Singh was reportedly upset about making this journey for some reason and had told his senior that he wanted to get off at Valsad as he felt unwell, although he later agreed to continue. At about 5 am as the train passed Vaitarna before Virar and three stations after Palgarh, he is said to have had an altercation with a passenger and when Meena intervened, Singh fired at him from his automatic weapon in the B5 coach.

He then went to the adjoining pantry car and shot another passenger there before moving to the B6 coach and shot dead another passenger there. A shot clip circulating on social media purportedly showed Singh standing near one of his victims in a pool of blood after he had shot him and rumbling about something to do with terrorists and Pakistan.

The whole incident is said to have panned out for about 35 to 40 minutes till the train reached Mira Road when some passengers pulled the emergency chain and seeing the train slow down, Singh jumped out to escape. He was chased by RPF and GRP jawans and quickly nabbed and placed under arrest at Mira Road and his weapon was also seized. Senior railway police officers had arrived to conduct further investigation.

Although senior Western railway officials said that since the incident was very serious, the Indian railway would be constituting a high-level committee to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident, however as an initial reaction to the media, DCP Sandeep Bhajibhakre, DCP GRP, Western Railway said that as per their initial information, Singh was not mentally very sound. 

The bodies of the four deceased were taken upto Borivali railway station from where they were taken to Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali, and most of the passengers from the B5 and B6 coaches alighted at Borivali station as police began their preliminary inquiry. Railway officials said that families of the deceased passengers are being contacted, and as per rules and the railway insurance schemes, they would be given an ex gratia amount. 

Meena was a native of Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and was due to retire in about a year and lived in Mumbai railway quarters. The three passengers have been identified as Abdul Kadarbhai Mohammed Hussain Bhanpurwala (65) a small trader from Nalasopara near Mumbai, Akhtar Abbas Ali (48) from Madhubani in Bihar and was an Islamic teacher at Pune and one Sadar Mohammed Hussain whose details and locations were yet to be identified.