Yashaswani Chauhan, Pune
The police have reportedly shot Akshay Shinde dead on Monday. Shinde is the man accused of raping two young girls at a school in Badlapur, Maharashtra. He was being transported for questioning from Taloja jail to Badlapur.
According to police reports, Shinde snatched a weapon from one of the officers and opened fire during the transportation around 5:30 PM. In that melee, two officers were injured. Officers retaliated quickly and Shinde was seriously injured in the shootout. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.
Shinde had attracted wide and adverse publicity in public on August 17 after his arrest. Accused of sexually assaulting two girls aged four years and five, inside the toilet of a school only a few days ago, public outcry and protest had already spread like wildfire, demanding justice for the young age victims of the heinous crime committed against them.
Akshay was a sweeper in the school where the rapes occurred. The panic among the people about their children led to voices all over the town demanding accountability and tightening measures to safeguard children.
In the first instance, the probe fell to local police who came under public outcry for their treatment of the case. The Maharashtra government had to step in and establish a Special Investigation Team, or SIT, that would take over for a conclusive and open investigation into allegations leveled against Shinde and his slight negligence by school authorities.
Besides the case against Shinde, the school chairman and secretary have also been charge-sheeted under the POCSO Act for not reporting the matter in time and gross negligence in their duty of protecting students. They approached the Bombay High Court on Monday with a plea for pre-arrest bail.
The recent shooting in Maharashtra has raised a lot of political chatter on how the police operate. Government officials claim that the police acted out of self-defense, but opposition leaders criticize the incident as a “shoot-and-scoot” tactic to cover up the real issues the case initially brought into the investigation. Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena aired her concerns through social media, hinting that other individuals involved in the case remain on the run.
As this tragic story unfolds, it brings in not just the need for justice but how accountable and safe our educational institutions are. The community lives to continue with life after such an incident, hoping that healing and justice will take place for the wronged parties.