‘Passengers who recorded RPF cop’s hate rant yet to be found’

megha.sood@hindustantimes.com

MUMBAI: The Government Railway Police (GRP) team investigating the killings of 4 people on board the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Superfast Express claims it’s as yet unable to find any passengers who recorded the videos of the killer Chetan Singh as he made his hate speech against Muslims.

Three of Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable’s victims were Muslims, and eye-witness accounts clearly establish that after murdering his senior, assistant sub-inspector Tikaram Meena, Singh had gone looking for people who had visible markers of their Muslim identity. After shooting dead Meena, Singh’s second victim in coach B-5 was the bearded Kaderbhai Bhanpurwala. After these two murders, he crossed coaches B-4 and B-3. In coach B-2 he identified his third victim, the bearded Bidar native Syed Saifuddin. According to investigators, Singh took Saifuddin with him on gun point to the pantry car after crossing coach B-1 where he did not harm anyone. Once they reached the pantry car he shot dead Saifuddin.

The multiple videos shot by the passengers on their cell phones are helping investigators piece together those terrifying minutes on the train as Singh went on his killing spree. A senior police officer who is part of the investigation, spoke to HT on the condition of anonymity: “The videos that are available, reveal that Singh stood staring at the body of his 57-year-old senior Tikaram Meena for over 5 minutes after shooting him from point blank range in B-5 compartment and this has been corroborated by witnesses, including the attendant of the coach, KK Shukla, in their statements.” It was only after over five minutes that Singh moved to kill 60-year-old Bhanpurwala in the same B-5 coach, added the officer.

From the pantry car, Singh crossed two other coaches, S-8 and S-7, again leaving the passengers in them unscathed, before stopping in S-6, a reserved sleeper class compartment, where he trained his gun on another bearded passenger, Asghar Abbas Ali, and shot him dead.

“Every moment from the time he shot his senior till he shot Asghar Ali must be carefully evaluated and must be corroborated before reaching any conclusion about the motive. Singh’s thought process of asking passengers to record a video where he makes a hate speech against Muslims must be vetted,” said the GRP officer.

However, concerned relatives of the three Muslim victims say they fear that the GRP is dragging its feet on probing the communal angle in the case. Despite recording the statements of over 100 witnesses on the train, the GRP says it has yet to find a single witness who shot the videos of Singh launching into his anti-Muslim rant while standing next to the bullet-riddled body of Asghar Ali in compartment S-6. Witnesses have told the GRP that Singh had exhorted the passengers in S-6 to record him and his speech and in one of the videos passengers can clearly be seen recording Singh on their phones.

The victims’ families say the video is the one clear proof that Singh had set out to deliberately target Muslim passengers. “Police officials are trying to cover up the entire investigation and are trying to point the murders as a result of Singh’s mental health, and that it’s not a hate crime,” said Mohammed Mohsin, brother of Syed Saifuddin whom Singh had shot dead in the pantry car. Moinuddin who spoke to HT over the phone from Hyderabad added, “We have learnt (from other passengers) that Singh asked my brother his name before shooting him.”

The GRP, in its remand application has made no mention of Singh’s video rant, focussing only on the sequence of events and in fact, while seeking his custody has claimed that they need to investigate his mental health—something which normally a defence lawyer would focus on.

Singh, who is in GRP custody until August 7, has not yet revealed his motive for the killings but investigators who are questioning him are of the opinion that the murder of the three passengers was an afterthought. GRP officers say the statements of the Jaipur Superfast passengers who shot the videos of Singh making his speech will be important evidence, if they can find those people.