RPF constable shoots dead senior, 3 passengers on board Jaipur-Mumbai train
Mumbai (PTI): A Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable on Monday shot dead four persons on board a running train near Palghar railway station in Maharashtra, an official said.
Constable Chetan Kumar Choudhary fired from his automatic weapon, killing an RPF Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) and three other passengers of the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express shortly after 5 am, the official said.
According to a senior police official, the accused RPF constable was mentally unstable.
Palghar is around 100 km from Mumbai.
The constable opened fire on his escort duty in-charge ASI Tika Ram Meena in the running train, the official said.
After killing his senior, the constable went to another bogie and shot dead three passengers, the official added.
The accused then tried to escape from the train between Mira Road and Dahisar, but was later nabbed by the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel and his weapon was also seized, he said.
The accused, who hails from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, is in the custody of the Mira Road railway police, the official said.
The bodies were taken out of the train at Borivali railway station, he said.
According to railway officials, four RPF personnel, including constable Choudhary, were escorting the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express from Surat station in Gujarat on Monday.
The four-member team earlier escorted Dadar-Porbandar Saurashtra Express up to Surat station the previous day. On return journey, the escorting party was guarding the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express, a senior railway official said.
The escort parties generally have four to five personnel of the GRP and RPF in a long distance train. They provide security to trains in their respective railway divisions and thereafter, counterparts from other divisions take over the responsibility of guarding the trains.
Western Railway's (WR) chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur told PTI that the accused constable was attached to the Lower Parel RPF post here, while ASI Tika Ram Meena was attached to the Dadar RPF post.
The Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express departed from Jaipur station in Rajasthan at 2.01 pm on Sunday and reached Surat station, where the escort party boarded the train, at 2.47 am on Monday.
Before reaching Borivali station in Mumbai at 6.21 am, about 25 minutes late than its scheduled time, the train stopped at its official halt Vapi in Gujarat, from where it departed one minute late at 4.08 am, as per the official running status of the train.
Thakur said an alarm chain pulling happened in the train near Dahisar station, where the accused constable jumped and ran away, before being caught at Mira Road.
The train was held up at Borivali station for about an hour from 6.21 am to 7.15 am, before it left from there and reached its final destination Mumbai Central station at 8.07 am, about 1.12 hours late, as per the train's running status.
Meanwhile, an ex-gratia of Rs 25 lakh has been announced for the kin of deceased ASI Meena, a senior Western Railway official said.
Meena's kin will be given Rs 15 lakh from the Railway Suraksha Kalyan Nidhi (fund), apart from funeral expenses of Rs 20,000, WR spokesperson Sumit Thakur said.
His kin will also get a sum from the death-cum-retirement gratuity and group insurance scheme, the official said.
Asked about compensation for the families of the other three victims of the train firing incident, Thakur said, "Ex-gratia will be given."
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Karnataka to witness heavy rain for next 10 days
Bengaluru: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast that the southwest monsoon will cause heavy rainfall likely this weekend and will drench Karnataka over the next 10 days.
The monsoon has begun retreating from northwestern India. Conditions remain active over the south, with an upper air trough extending up to 1.5 km over North Interior Karnataka and northern Tamil Nadu, combined with weakening monsoon winds across the peninsula, is driving the current spell. N. Puviarasan, head of the IMD’s meteorological centre in Bengaluru, said in a conversation with Deccan Herald, “As a result, the whole of Karnataka will see rain over the next week to 10 days."
With a cyclone in the Pacific Ocean along with a low-pressure system over the north Bay of Bengal, the monsoon is expected to intensify during the next four days. IMD has predicted heavy rains across South Interior Karnataka, including Bengaluru, throughout the weekend.
Bengaluru, recorded widespread moderate to heavy rainfall on Thursday. Between 8.30 am and 8.30 pm, Bengaluru city logged 45.9 mm of rain accompanied by thunderstorms. HAL airport registered 6 mm and the Bengaluru Urban automatic station recorded 47.5 mm. Doddathoguru, near Electronics City, reported 55 mm.
According to IMD forecast heavy rainfall will occur at isolated places in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Yadgir, Koppal, Raichur, Ramanagara and Mandya districts in the next few days.
The southwest monsoon is now expected to extend until mid-October and with little or no break in between, the northeast monsoon is likely to follow immediately. These are expected to last until December. “There may be no break in between,” Puviarasan said.
