Ex-Army Officer Opens Fire On Rajdhani Express After Fight With Coach Attendant Over Seat

A former Army officer mistakenly boarded a different Rajdhani Express than the one he was supposed to travel by. After having an argument with a coach attendant over a seat, he opened fire on the train.

Representative Image: Ex-Army officer opened fire in Rajdhani Express

A 41-year-old man on Thursday allegedly opened fire on the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express train after an argument with a coach attendant regarding a seat. No casualty was reported in the matter. A railway official, while talking to the news agency PTI, said that the accused was a retired Army officer and was arrested after the incident. The official said that the incident took place between Dhanbad and Gomoh stations around 9:45 pm inside the B-7 coach, reported PTI. 

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager (Dhanbad rail division), Amresh Kumar said, "The man, identified as Harvinder Singh, is being interrogated. Prima facie, it appears that he was in an inebriated state when he opened fire.”

A Railway Protection Force (RPF) official said the accused had a ticket for the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express. But he boarded the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express on Thursday evening at Dhanbad railway station by mistake. After boarding the train, Singh had an altercation with the coach attendant over a seat. During the argument, the retired Army personnel opened fire from his revolver, said the RPF official. 

As he opened fire, RPF personnel on the train seized the pistol immediately. The accused was arrested at the Koderma railway station, PTI reported.

Earlier in July, an RPF jawan shot dead four persons on a train en route to Mumbai from Jaipur. The accused was identified as Constable Chetan Kumar Choudhary. He fired his automatic weapon the the train and killed an RPF Assistant Sub-Inspector along with three other passengers, reported PTI. A senior police officer said that the accused was mentally unstable. The senior cop said, “He [accused] opened fire on his escort duty in-charge ASI Tika Ram Meena in the running train," reported The Mint.

The officer added that after killing his senior, the constable went to another bogie where he shot dead three other passengers.