Mumbai police and encounters: From killing gangsters to staging deaths Premium

Encounters in Mumbai: Politics surround the shooting of Akshay Shinde accused of sexual assault, with the Opposition demanding a judicial probe.

The story so far: Controversy has arisen over the shooting of Akshay Shinde, who was accused of sexually assaulting two minors at a school in Badlapur, with the Opposition demanding a judicial probe into the incident. The police claimed that the accused snatched the gun of one of the policemen and opened fire at them on Monday (September 23, 2024) and hence was shot dead in ‘self-defence’ by the Thane police.

Opposition leaders like Sharad Pawar, Priyanka Chaturvedi, and Nana Patole have questioned the laxity of the government and sought an inquiry into the incident. “To ensure justice to the two small girls in the Badlapur case, the accused should have been hanged as per the framework of law. But the laxity shown by the Home department while transferring the accused is suspicious,” Mr. Pawar posted on X. Meanwhile, the Congress has alleged that the shooting is an attempt to wrap up the case.

Casting aspersions on the Opposition’s queries, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said, “Someone did such a terrible act to the little girls. How can the Opposition take the side of such an accused?” His party MP Milind Deora posted on X: “The accused opened fire and seriously injured API Nilesh More. What exactly does the Opposition expect? Should our police officers lay down their lives at the hand of a rape accused?” Locals and Shiv Sena workers ‘celebrated’ the accused’s killing by distributing sweets and expressing relief.

The family of the 24-year-old accused have challenged the police’s claims and accused them of pressuring Shinde to confess in the sexual assault case. A high-level probe has been ordered into the incidents leading to Shinde’s death.

Inspector Sanjay Shinde, the police officer who shot the accused, has worked under encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, who previously headed the anti-extortion cell of the Thane Police Crime Branch. ‘Encounter specialists’ have been woven into the city’s bloody history, dealing with underworld gangsters, smugglers and terrorists since the 1980s.

Caught in bloody wars between different gangs headed by Karim Lala, Babu Reshim, Dawood Ibrahim, Rajan Nair, and Arun Gawli (to name a few), Mumbai lived in constant fear in the early 1980s and 1990s, with the police working hard to quell crime. The first instance of an ‘encounter’ was in 1982, when local gangster Manohar ‘Manya’ Surve, who was responsible for killing gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s older brother Shabir Kaskar, was gunned down by inspectors Isaque Bagwan and Raja Tambat in Wadala. The shooting was based on a planned mission by the police to nab Surve and a tip-off by his rivals.

In his book Class Of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police, author S. Hussain Zaidi narrates how 90 of the 450 police cadets who had graduated from the Maharashtra Police Academy’s 1983 class were posted in Mumbai. Trained under IPS officer Arvind Inamdar, young officers like Vijay Salaskar, Pradeep Sharma, Sachin Waze, Aslam Momin, and Praful Bhosale formed the police’s first set of ‘encounter specialists.’ These officers were part of the ‘encounter squad’ allegedly assigned to bring down the organised crime network. Gaining informants among small-time criminals, these officers built their own information networks to apprehend several gang members and foil many extortion and smuggling rackets. Soon enough, these officers began conducting encounters targetting high-profile members of the underworld.