GRP slaps additional hate-crime charge against arrested RPF constable who killed 4

MUMBAI: The Government Railway Police (GRP) has slapped an additional charge under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds against Railway Protection Force constable Chetan Singh while seeking extension of his remand.

On August 31 Singh had killed his senior officer Tikaram Meena and 3 other passengers—all of them Muslim—before giving a vitriolic speech against the community and insisted that other passengers record his screed.

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The Borivali GRP on Monday told the magistrate court that based on at least 15 videos shot by passengers, they had added the charge of 153A of the IPC. Apart from recording statements of witnesses – mainly passengers from B1, B2, B4, B5 and S6 coaches and the pantry car of the express train, the GRP’s technical teams are also analysing the videos shot by various passengers on the train.

“We suspect that the videos which went viral hours after the incident were edited or chopped considerably. We are trying to obtain full copies of the videos,” said a police officer. “The seized videos are also being analysed by our team,” added the officer.

Seeking extension of Singh’s custody remand, the GRP also informed the court that three more sections - 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code have also been slapped against the arrested RPF constable, after a witness, Jaffar Khan, told them that Singh had taken away his caretaker, Sayed Saifuddin Moinuddin, at gunpoint from coach B2 to the Pantry car where he had allegedly shot him dead from point black range.

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The GRP further told the court that they needed Singh’s custody for seven days more days as they are yet to obtain and scan the CCTV recordings of the entire train journey from Jaipur to Mumbai which they needed to analyse the entire sequence of events. “We have got a few CCTV recordings but the we are still to obtain the CCTV recording of the entire journey to find out whether Singh had spoken to someone else during the journey to establish the motive behind the killings or whether he was instigated by someone else to commit the murders,” said a GRP official.

Advocate Surendra Landage, who represented Singh, opposed the plea for extension of his police custody remand. He said his client had told him on Sunday that he was not in his senses when the murders were committed. The court extended Singh’s remand until August 11.

The family of one of Singh’s victims, Kadar Bhanpurwala, has appointed advocate Vishnu Bhatt as the watching advocate to keep an eye on the proceedings and to make sure that the case was investigated thoroughly without bias.

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On Saturday, the GRP also took RPF constable Amay Acharya – the complainant in the shootout case - to the train, presently parked at Mumbai Central yard, to get a clear picture of the crime scene and the sequence of events that may have triggered it.

Acharya told the police that at 5.59am last Monday he had informed his seniors about the firing and claimed that he had tried to stop Singh but had to back off after Singh pointed the loaded gun at him. He further claimed that had he not backed off Singh would have shot him dead too.

The surveillance of the isolation lockup where Singh has been lodged in Borivali has been increased by the police and an additional CCTV camera has been installed in his cell to monitor him 24/7.

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According to the GRP, after murdering his senior, assistant sub-inspector Tikaram Meena, on July 31, Singh had gone looking for people who had visible markers of their Muslim identity. After shooting dead Meena, he killed Kaderbhai Bhanpurwala in coach B5. Thereafter he crossed coaches - B-4 and B-3before identifying his third victim, the bearded Bidar native Syed Saifuddin. Singh kidnapped him at gun point, crossed coach B-1 where he did not harm anyone and then killed Saifuddin once they reached the pantry car. Later he went to compartment S-6 where he shot dead his fourt victim, Asghar Ali and then made the hate speech while standing by his bullet-riddled body.