NM prof's killer held

The Borivali Railway Police on Sunday arrested Omkar Eknath Shinde, a 27-year-old resident of Malad East, for allegedly stabbing fellow commuter Alok Kumar Singh (33), a junior college lecturer, to death with a sharp weapon on Saturday evening following an altercation inside a local train.

- Megha Kuchik, Kamal Mishra

Shinde, who works as a metal polisher in Khetwadi, has no prior criminal record. An additional metropolitan magistrate in Borivali remanded him to police custody until January 30. Rakesh Kalasagar, Commissioner of the Mumbai Railway Police, confirmed the arrest.

"We have arrested the suspect within 24 hours. The fight broke out after the two men alighted from a crowded local train. The accused was not intoxicated at the time of the incident," said Datta Khuperkar, senior police inspector at the Borivali Railway Police.

The complainant in the case is Sudhir Kumar Trivedi (41), a resident of Nalasopara East and a lecturer at Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics (NM College), Vile Parle West.

Trivedi was travelling with the deceased, Alok Kumar Singh, a resident of Malad East and a mathematics lecturer at the same college.

After work on Saturday, at around 5 pm, Trivedi and Singh took an auto-rickshaw from outside the college to Andheri railway station. They boarded a Borivali slow local train bound for Virar from platform number 3 at 5.25 pm and stood near the east-side door of the general compartment.

As the train approached Malad railway station at around 5.30 pm, an unknown man later identified as Shinde-standing behind Singh began arguing with him.