Cop who shot Badlapur rape suspect Akshay Shinde was part of expert Deepak Sharma’s team

Mumbai:

The 23-year-old man accused of raping two kindergarten girls in Badlapur, Maharashtra, was shot dead by police officers after he grabbed a constable’s gun and fired at a police officer, police said. Assistant police inspector Nilesh More was injured in the firing. Senior inspector Sanjay Shinde fired the final shot that knocked Akshay down. He died in hospital.

Mr. Shinde was part of a team led by Pradeep Sharma, the famed encounter specialist who featured in the Netflix docuseries ‘Mumbai Mafia: Police vs The Underworld’. He was part of the celebrity cop’s team when he headed the Thane Crime Branch’s anti-extortion cell, sources said.

This team arrested Iqbal Kaskar, brother of underworld don Dawood, in Thane in 2017 in an extortion case.

Mr. Sharma was also the subject of a 2014 Marathi crime thriller film called Rege. Veteran actor Mahesh Manjrekar played Sharma’s role in the film. Author and journalist S Hussain Zaidi’s ‘The Class of 83’ also delves into the encounters of Pradeep Sharma and other officers.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment earlier this year by the Bombay High Court for the fake meeting with Ramnarayan Gupta, an alleged close associate of gangster Chhota Rajan, in 2006.

Sanjay Shinde, who previously worked with the Mumbai Police, is now part of the special investigation team set up by the state government to probe the Badlapur rape case.

He was previously investigated after Vijay Palande, a suspect in two murder cases, fled from police custody in 2012. His uniform was found in the SUV in which Palande allegedly escaped. He was also investigated after he exchanged fire with another officer after getting drunk at a bar, reports suggest.

In 2000, he came under scrutiny in a kidnapping case. The case was solved after a senior official questioned Mr Shinde, it was reported in 2012.

Badlapur rape accused of shooting

Akshay Shinde was arrested in August, five days after the children reported the attack to their parents. The shooting took place yesterday when policemen from Badlapur had gone to Taloja jail to take Akshay into custody in a fresh rape and assault case filed by his first wife.

When the police team carrying Akshay approached the Mumbra bypass, he grabbed a cop’s gun and fired at the cops escorting him. In retaliation, Sanjay Shinde fired at him. Akshay was seriously injured in the firing and died in the hospital.

Constable Nilesh More, who was also injured, is being treated.

The opposition, meanwhile, questioned how a handcuffed man could snatch a gun and claimed the rape suspect’s death could have been an “encounter”.

The Maharashtra government has set up a special investigation team to probe the case.