New Delhi: Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable Chetan Singh who has been booked on charges of murdering his senior and three passengers on a Jaipur-Mumbai train this July has filed for bail before the Dindoshi Session Court in Maharashtra.
The accused, who was dismissed from service and is currently in judicial custody in his bail plea filed through lawyers Amit Mishra and Pankaj Ghildiyal, has claimed that he is suffering from mental illness.
“The accused was suffering from mental disease. He lived in an imaginary and delusional world and suffered from neurological and psychological issues,” advocate Amit Mishra said.
The court has directed the prosecution to file a reply to the plea. “It will be heard on December 1,” advocate Mishra said.
The police has however opposed the bail plea of the dismissed RPF constable. Four railway passengers, including an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of the Railway Protection Force, were shot dead allegedly by the RPF jawan onboard the Mumbai-Jaipur Superfast Express after it crossed Palghar Station in Maharashtra on July 31. The Government Railway Police (GRP), in its chargesheet filed earlier said that Singh is completely sane and was aware of what he was doing. In the over 1,000 pages long chargesheet filed before a local court in the Mumbai suburbs, the GRP stated that it relied on the depositions of over 150 witnesses before coming to this conclusion. According to the GRP officers, they recorded the statements of three of such witnesses before the Borivali Metropolitan Magistrate court under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In addition to the witness testimonies, the investigators also relied on the CCTV footage from inside the train where Chetan Singh is seen moving between compartments, looking for potential victims. A high-level committee headed by the Additional Director-General of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) was constituted to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the Mumbai train firing incident.