Tragedy unfolded in the wee hours of Monday on board the moving Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express train where a Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable allegedly shot dead his senior and three passengers near Palghar station on Mumbai's outskirts

After shooting four people, police said Chetan Singh, the accused constable, made a hate rant. “They were operating from Pakistan...our media is giving them coverage... If you want to stay in Hindustan, vote for Modi, Yogi and Thackeray,” Singh is heard saying in a video shot by another passenger. The police, however, are insisting that the accused is mentally unstable.

The police were speechless when reporters questioned them about allotting lethal weapons to such short tempered policemen.

The incident took place after the train crossed Vaitarna Railway station at around 5.25 am on Monday. At Vapi station Constable Singh requested his senior, ASI Tikaram Meena, to let him go home after the train crossed Surat railway station. But ASI Meena refused to let him do so.

The accused constable then fired 12 rounds of his mini AK 47 rifle in the running train from B-5 compartment to the pantry, to S-6 compartment. Police said the constable first killed ASI Meena in the B-5 AC compartment and then the three passengers Asgar Ali Abbas Ali Sheikh, 48, Abdul Kader Mohammed Hussain Bhanpurwala, 62, and another who remains unidentified, as there were no documents with him and he was lying near the pantry, not on his seat, making it difficult to identify him.