New Delhi: The Railways on August 2 (Wednesday) first said in a statement that no mental ailment was detected in the last periodic medical examination of the RPF constable accused in the Jaipur-Mumbai train hate-crime, only to withdraw it within hours.Railway Protection Force Constable Chetan Singh (33) is accused of gunning down and killing his senior colleague Tika Ram Meena and three passengers, all visibly Muslim, aboard the moving train near Palghar railway station on the outskirts of Mumbai in the early hours of Monday with his automatic weapon, officials had said.In a video purportedly of the incident, Singh was heard invoking the names of ‘Modi-Yogi’ and ‘Thackeray’. Western Railways sources had earlier told the media that the accused had got into “an argument over communities”.He was apprehended later and his attempts to escape were thwarted.The Wire had reported on how after killing one passenger with a beard and in a Pathan suit – a visible Muslim appearance – Singh in the video, can be seen addressing the passengers. “…Agar vote dena hai, agar Hindustan me rehna hai, toh mai kehta hoon, Modi aur Yogi, ye do hain, aur aapke Thackeray” (…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’),” he announced.The three civilian victims have been identified as Abdul Qadirbhai Mohammed Hussain Bhanpurwala, Akhtar Abbas Ali, and Sadar Mohammed Hussain.Unnamed Railways officials were quick to term the incident as one driven by the mental instability of Singh even before any checks and when the accused was produced before a magistrate in Mumbai’s Borivali court, the remand copy didn’t make any mention of the video that clearly showed his communally charged speech. Instead, it entirely focuses on Singh’s “illness” and indicates his unstable mind which led him to take the extreme step of killing four persons while on duty.On Wednesday, presumably in order to insulate itself from questions what Singh was doing on the shift if his “illness” and “unstable mind” were issues, the Railways issued a statement denying it knew he was ill. “In this regard, it is stated that there is system of Periodical Medical Examination (PME) of Railway Protection Force constables, and in the last PME, no such medical ailment/ condition was detected.”But a few hours later, the ministry appears to have rethought its strategy. “The press release has been withdrawn,” a Railways spokesperson said.