Mumbai:

The two trustees of the school in Thane’s Badlapur where two minor girls were sexually assaulted by a sweeper kept changing their locations every two-three days, switched off their phones and did not contact their families even once in the month and a half that they were on the run, police officials have said.

Sources in the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to investigate the rape cases said the two men, Uday Kotwal and Tushar Apte, fled Badlapur on August 20, days after the news of the assault broke and it started becoming clear to them that they would be arrested. The Thane Police wanted to question them because it suspected that there was negligence on their part in not reporting the assaults.

The main accused, Akshay Shinde, was arrested in August and killed in a police encounter the next month. The police had said he was being transferred when he snatched a weapon from a police official and opened fire, and was killed in retaliatory firing.

The two trustees were arrested on Wednesday and they told officials of the SIT that once they realised that they could be arrested, they went from Badlapur to Satara about 250 km away. They said they did so because they were very scared but have now realised that it was a mistake. 

During the 40-odd days that they were on the run, they said they kept changing their locations every two to three days but stayed in western Maharashtra the entire time. They also knew that their phones could be used to track them and kept them switched off.

One of the trustees told the police that they realised that their families would be kept under surveillance and so both of them decided that they would not contact them.

They had filed anticipatory bail petitions in the Bombay High Court, which had rejected them on Tuesday and they were arrested from Karjat in Raigad district the next day.

The trustees were produced in court on Thursday and got bail in connection with the first information report (FIR) filed by the families of one of the girls but were immediately arrested in the second FIR. They got bail in the second case on Friday. 

Mumbai:

The mother of the 24-year-old school sweeper, who is accused of raping two nursery girls in Maharashtra’s Badlapur, has challenged the police claim of the events that led to his death in custody yesterday. Akshay Shinde snatched the gun of a constable and shot a police officer inside the police van, and was injured in retaliatory firing by the cops, the police had said. He died at the hospital.

His family denied that he could fire at the cops, and alleged they had pressured him to confess his role in the rape case.

“My son was afraid of bursting crackers and crossing the road. How can he shoot at policemen. The police also got the confessional statement written by him under pressure. What he was made to write, only he knows,” the accused’s mother and uncle told reporters last night.

Anna Shinde, father of Akshay, has also demanded an inquiry into his killing.

Videos last night showed his family demanding that the police show them his body, but the cops refused. They were also seen outside the locked gates of the Kalwa civic hospital hoping to get a glimpse of their son’s body.

The family alleged a conspiracy by the cops and the school management and refused to receive his body last night. The opposition in Maharashtra too alleged Akshay was killed in an “encounter”.

A high-level probe has been ordered into his death.

Akshay’s family said he also told them he was beaten up by the cops and that he had sent a chit seeking money. They further claimed he was not depressed. “The police have killed our child. The school management must be probed as well,” the family has alleged.

She said the charges against Akshay were not proved and he used to ask her when he will be released.

Akshay was arrested in August after the sexual assault case of the two nursery girls sparked massive public protest. His shooting occurred yesterday when officers from Badlapur had gone to Taloja jail to take custody Akshay in a new rape and assault case filed by his former wife.

When the police team carrying Akshay neared Mumbra bypass, he snatched the gun of a constable and opened fire at cops escorting him, said the police. The cops retaliated, injuring Akshay and he died at the hospital. A constable, Nilesh More, who was injured in the firing, is undergoing treatment.

Kalwa-Mumbra MLA Jitendra Awhad of the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP have also termed the police version as “baseless” and questioned how someone with handcuffs could snatch a gun when he was surrounded by five cops.

Special Public Prosecutor advocate Ujjwal Nikam said the police had enough proof against Akshay and he would have got death penalty if the matter had gone to court.

“When the accused knows that there is no chance of him escaping, they can get violent. So, Akshay Shinde could be psychologically depressed and that’s why he attacked the police or tried to commit suicide and police had to do a firing in retaliation and two policemen also got injured,” he told ANI.