Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable, Chetan Singh, has been arrested after he allegedly opened fire on a train, killing four people and injuring several others. The incident took place on the Jaipur-Mumbai Superfast Express train on July 31, 2023. According to a statement by Government Railway Police (GRP) Commissioner Ravindra Shisve, Singh was travelling on the train when he got into an argument with his senior, ASI Tikaram Meena. The argument was about Chetan Singh not being relieved from duty on the train despite citing sickness. Meena asked Singh to rest and instructed another official Ameya Acharya to take Chetan Singh’s rifle. But within 10 minutes, Singh got back up and tried to throttle Acharya when he wouldn’t return his rifle. In a heated argument, he allegedly snatched Meena’s rifle and opened fire on him and three other passengers in different coaches of the train, coach B5, pantry B2 and coach S6 to be precise. The crime happened early in the morning at 5.23 am. Western Railway officials also claimed that Chetan Sigh tried to flee near Dahisar station after pulling the stop chain, but was arrested by the RPF and GRP forces a short time later.
The victims of the shooting have been identified as ASI Meena, passengers Abdul Bhanpurwala, Syed Saifuddin and Ajgar Abbas Shaikh.
Singh is currently being held in police custody and is being questioned about the motive for the shooting. He has not yet been charged with any crime. The heinous shooting has caused widespread shock and outrage in India. Investigators are still trying to determine the motive for Chetan Singh’s shooting spree. They believe he may have been motivated by a personal dispute with his senior, ASI Tikaram Meena, who was one of the four people killed in the attack. Investigators are also looking into the possibility that Singh may have been motivated by religious or political extremism. However, they have not found any evidence to support this theory at this time.
So here is the catch. Chetan Sigh has been arrested for his crime under Section 302 of the Punishment for Murders Act. But without evidence of motive, what verdict will the judiciary give? In India, a country already struggling due to a lack of judicial reforms and lack of stringent national security laws, a new challenge has cropped up – the security of passengers on Indian trains.
The RPF has said that it is conducting an investigation into the incident and that it will take steps to improve security on trains. But such pacifying statements have been heard numerous times before: In the 1991 Kalyan train bombing; 1993 train blasts; Dec 1996 Brahmaputra train bombing; May 13, 2002, Jaunpur Train Crash; December 21, 2002, Kurnool train crash; January 2, 2002, Jammu railway station attack; July 2008 Jaunpur train bombing; February 2006 Ahmedabad railway station bombing; March 7, 2006, Varanasi Cantonment railway station bombings; February 18, 2007, Samjhauta Express bombings; May 28, 2010, Jnaneswari train derailment; and on May 1, 2014, Chennai train bombing.
So it’s an irony that while culprits of these bombings have been under trial, for even over 11 years in some cases, the verdict for this lone wolf attack by Chetan Singh is being demanded on an ‘immediate basis’ by Muslim protestors coming out in thousands, in Jaipur city. Investigators are clueless as to whether this was a hate crime against Muslims or an act committed out of a medically undiagnosed mental condition.
To prove the first situation — of whether or not this is a hate crime against Muslims — it has to be ascertained that Chetan Sigh has shown a history of hate against one community. It also has to be ascertained that in all the railway boogies, where he shot the victims, there were no other Muslim passengers, because, in case of a hate crime, the assailant will shoot anyone around him whom he identifies as a threat. He wouldn’t actually look in different boogies, and confirm the name of the victim before shooting. Also if it was a hate crime against Muslims, then there is no explanation why he would shoot his senior officer, ASI Meena, who happens to be a Hindu. Also, Chetan Singh didn’t just flee immediately from the spot. He waited around for people to film him from their mobile phones and even spoke on their cameras. “These men were operating from Pakistan, even the media knows, but everyone was trying to cover up for them,” Singh spoke these words as he stood and watched his victim die after firing at him. Such conviction to shoot at sight seems more like Singh wanted to commit this crime because he wanted to stop a bigger crime which he viewed as a conspiracy by the three victims.
To prove the second situation — of whether or not this crime was committed because of an unstable mental condition — it has to be ascertained from family, friends and colleagues, if Singh had ever displayed symptoms of an unstable mental condition or if he ever got any prescriptions for a medical or psychiatric condition. Ironically, so far, neither his family nor friends have acknowledged that he was a difficult person to live around. Some colleagues have given testimony that he is ‘hot headed’, but that’s a personality trait possessed by most employees of security forces. It is almost like an advantage score point for those who get recruited in police forces, due to the aggressive work profile.
Even if we take into account that he was unleashing his frustration because of not getting a sick leave from duty, it seems absurd, that when he was asked to rest, he may as well have snoozed off and avoided duty. Was there any foolproof reason why he would want to struggle to get his weapon back if he really was sick to the core?
So that leaves us on no man’s land in the investigation of the curious case of Chetan Singh. The GRP and judicial system is already attempting to charge him with creating communal disharmony too. But, for what it’s worth, we owe it to India, which still is not a banana republic, that our investigative agencies complete a thorough and intensive search before the court of law orders a capital punishment verdict, just to appease a large and angry vote bank and possibly conceal some fault lines of the political and police system, who as per Chetan’s allegations, “knew it all but were trying to cover up”.
Yana Mir is a journalist and social activist. She is the Vice-President of All JK Youth Society. She tweets at @MirYanaSY. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
Comments
0 comment