Defending the act of police that killed Akshay Shinde, who is accused of sexual assault in Badlapur, Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde said they did it in self-defense, else he would have escaped.
There was political controversy over the death of Akshay Shinde, who is alleged to have sexually assaulted two small girls in Badlapur last month.
On Wednesday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the police fired in self-defense amid this political controversy.
The Chief Minister’s remarks at the India Today Conclave came just hours after the Bombay High Court raised serious questions over the custodial death of the accused, saying, “This cannot be termed an encounter.”
“It was self-defense. If he had run, the Partisans would have asked if the guns were ornaments. They would have claimed that we let him get away. The police were injured in the encounter.
We should identify with the police,” Eknath Shinde said at the Conclave in Mumbai.
He said Akshay Shinde had four wives, and one of them had filed a case of unnatural sex against him and that she had called him a “monster.”
The woman had filed an FIR against him (Akshay Shinde). She gave a statement and said he was a monster. He had four wives. Imagine what cruelty he had meted out to them, he said.
“When he had sexually assaulted those girls (in Badlapur) who are the same age as his daughters, imagine what they (victims) had gone through. This is an unfortunate incident,” he said.
Attacking the opposition, Eknath Shinde accused them of changing their stance over the Badlapur incident and said they were playing politics of hypocrisy.
“They had blocked railway services for nine hours at Badlapur railway station. They said that we would hang the culprit here.
And now, when the encounter happened, they are blaming us. This is politics of hypocrisy,” he said.
