Chetan Singh Chaudhary is a former Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable from Hathras, Uttar Pradesh (UP). He is known for committing hate crimes against Muslims.

In 2016, Chaudhary threatened a 45-year-old Muslim auto driver in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, calling him a “traitor” and “terrorist” and other communal and hate-filled verbal abuse. Apart from this, Chaudhary also physically assaulted the driver and threatened to implicate him in a false case. Although the victim had filed a complaint against Chaudhary in 2016, an inquiry was launched only a year later, after which Chaudhary was transferred to Bhavnagar, Gujarat.

In July 2023, Chaudhary was on the Jaipur-Mumbai Superfast Express train when he used his loaded weapon to fatally shoot his senior officer, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Tikaram Meena, who belonged to a Scheduled Tribe, after an altercation. He then walked through the train, picking out bearded men, all Muslims, shooting and killing three of them at point blank range, firing 12 rounds from his automatic weapon in an alleged hate crime. He proceeded to go on a rant about Muslims in India without any apparent remorse, which was recorded by several passengers on their phones, while the blood-soaked body of one of his victims lay at his feet as he held a rifle.

“They operate from Pakistan, this is what the media of the country is showing, they have found out, they know everything, their leaders are there…If you want to vote, if you want to live in India, then I say, Modi and Yogi, these are the two, and your Thackeray.”

Chaudhary also threatened a burqa-clad woman passenger and forced her to say “Jai Mata Di” at gunpoint.

Although Chaudhary was apprehended before the train reached Mumbai, initial media reports focused on his mental stability rather than his deliberate targeting of Muslim men, though Chaudhary allegedly scoured through several coaches looking for suitable targets and picked out only Muslims among hundreds of other passengers.

Initially, the police made no mention of the communal speech made by Chaudhary and instead focused entirely on his “illness,” indicating that he was mentally unstable and on medication for hallucinations, charging him only with murder, the Arms Act and the Indian Railways Act, not hate speech. Sections of the law relating to promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion were only added after a week.

Chaudhary was allegedly involved in at least three discipline-related incidents in the past and was dismissed from duty in August 2023.