Mumbai: Akshay Shinde ‘encounter killing’ confirmed fake

A magisterial inquiry ordered by the Bombay High Court into allegations that it was a fake police encounter in August 2024 in which Akshay Shinde, accused of molesting two minor children in a school, confirmed that the ‘encounter’ was indeed fake.

The report handed over to the high court on Monday, 20 January, recommended that FIRs be registered against all the five policemen escorting Shinde back to prison after producing him in court on 12 August.

At the time, the police had claimed that Shinde had snatched the revolver of one of the policemen travelling in the prison van and the others had to open fire in self-defence.

The molestation, which took place in the Mumbai suburb of Badlapur, had acquired political overtones because the school's trustees, Uday Kotwal and Tushar Apte, both absconded after the controversy broke while parents and people took to the streets. Both the trustees were arrested after Akshay Shinde, the accused, was killed in the police encounter. Both were released on bail within days. It was alleged that the BJP government was protecting the trustees because they had links with the BJP.

The encounter took place with the Maharashtra assembly election due in two months and it was alleged that the fake encounter was staged to eliminate someone who could have embarrassed the school and the trustees — and also to give the BJP a political handle.

Sanjay Shinde, the policeman who was injured during the encounter, also had a controversial past, which added to the suspicion.

Sanjay Shinde allegedly helped Vijay Palande, accused in two murder cases, to escape from police custody in 2012. Palande escaped wearing Sanjay Shinde's uniform!

Sanjay Shinde was also on the team of ‘encounter specialist’ Pradeep Sharma. And it was Sanjay Shinde who fired the last bullet at Akshay Shinde.

The accused’s family and several activists had, at the time, alleged that the encounter was fake and the magisterial inquiry report has now confirmed their suspicions. But what was the motive?

People’s anger had spilled onto the streets. Trains were being stopped and railway lines blockaded. People demanded that Akshay Shinde be hanged and action taken against the absconding school trustees. With the election round the corner, there was a lot of pressure on the government to ‘do something’.

And now, the finding comes as a major embarrassment to the BJP-led Mahayuti government in the state.

Both Devendra Fadnavis, who was the deputy chief minister at the time, and then-chief minister Eknath Shinde had lauded the policemen after the killing. Responding to the public outrage, they had accused the activists of being hypocrites. They were demanding capital punishment for the accused but now that he has been killed, they were crying foul and accusing the police of extra-judicial killing, they had mocked.

This time, the roles have been reversed — with Fadnavis the chief minister and Shinde one of the two deputy chief ministers — but it is still the same set in government.

Now, the magisterial inquiry questions the circumstances in which Akshay Shinde was killed.

The five policemen in the prison van were adequately equipped to restrain the deceased and there was no occasion for them to allow Shinde to snatch a firearm, escape from the van and then ‘have to’ kill him while he was on the run, the report states.

The Forensic Science Laboratory’s report also makes it clear that Shinde’s fingerprints were not found on the pistol which he allegedly snatched from a constable and with which he was said to have fired at the police team. Also, the empty shells from the bullets reportedly fired out of this pistol were never found.

At the time, the minister of state for home affairs, Yogesh Kadam, maintained that the policemen were not guilty, that they had fired in self-defence and had done no wrong. It was raining when the encounter took place, he claimed, which prevented the collection of the residual gunpowder or even the empty shell of the bullet fired by Akshay Shinde, he added.

However, the inquiry has concluded that the claim that Shinde opened fire is of doubtful veracity, based on the evidence — or lack thereof.

The report recommends that an FIR be registered against the Thane Crime Branch senior police inspector (SPI) Sanjay Shinde, assistant police inspector (API) Nilesh More, head constable Abhijeet More and constables Harish Tawde and Satish Khatal.

The report was submitted to the division bench of the Bombay High Court, comprised of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Neela Gokhale. The division bench directed that a copy of the investigation report be provided to the prosecution and to Anna Shinde, the deceased’s father, who had petitioned the court.

The magisterial inquiry appears to have opened quite the Pandora’s box. For beyond the matter of their culpability, there is the issue of who gained from and, more crucially, directed the police officers’ efforts — and why.

The policemen would either have staged a fake encounter for a reward or they were obeying instructions from an authority figure. Were they trying to protect someone by eliminating Akshay Shinde and was there any political motive behind it?

The ensuing proceedings in the high court are expected to throw some light on these questions and provide some much-needed answers — and likely will involve some high political drama on the sidelines, if not at the very heart of the matter.