A day after the Bombay High Court questioned its inaction regarding the arrest of other suspects in the Badlapur sexual assault cases, the state-appointed special investigation team (SIT), along with the Thane crime branch, arrested two trustees of the school where the assaults occurred on October 2.
Police officials reported that the crime branch arrested school trust chairman Uday Kotwal (60) and trust secretary Tushar Apte (57) in Karjat, Raigad district, before transferring them to the SIT. The two will be presented before the special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court in Kalyan on October 3.
The assaults on two four-year-old girls by a cleaner named Akshay Shinde occurred at the school on August 12 and 13. The girls’ parents reported the incidents to the school principal, who then informed Kotwal and Apte. However, they failed to take timely action, leading to their inclusion in two separate FIRs filed at Badlapur East police station. Under the POCSO Act, 2012, not reporting sexual assault on minors is a punishable offence. Later, the police also found that the CCTV footage of the school from around mid-July to mid-August was tampered with.
In their pre-arrest bail applications submitted to the special POCSO court in Kalyan and later to the high court, Kotwal and Apte claimed that they only learned about the sexual assaults after being called in for an inquiry by the Badlapur East police. They argued that there was no opportunity to report the incidents to the police earlier.
On September 30, a single-judge bench led by Justice R N Laddha rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of both Kotwal and Apte. This decision came on the same day that a division bench questioned the SIT for not arresting the two. Both accused have been part of the school’s managing committee for the past 15 years. Sources have alleged that the main accused, Akshay Shinde, was employed at a farmhouse owned by Apte’s family.
Officials stated that the SIT had asked the Thane crime branch to assist in apprehending the two trustees. When the crime branch learned that the trustees were heading to Karjat for some work, they set a trap and successfully arrested them around 8:30 PM. “Our team has arrested the two trustees and transferred them to the SIT for further investigation,” said Dynaneshwar Chavhan, Joint CP of Thane police.
The two trustees were charged in a second case related to the alleged sexual assault on one of the girls. They, along with the principal, were booked under Sections 65(2), 74, 75, and 76 of the BNS, as well as Sections 2, 4, 8, 10, and 21 of the POCSO Act. Kotwal and Apte sought pre-arrest bail from the Kalyan sessions court on August 30, but their request was denied. They subsequently approached the high court.
Kotwal and Apte argued in the sessions court that they acted promptly upon learning about the sexual assaults on the children on August 16 and, therefore, should not face charges. The court requested the Investigating Officer (IO) to clarify the trustees’ roles. After the IO reported evidence of negligence on the part of the school, the court denied the anticipatory bail application (ABA). The duo then applied with the high court.
On October 1, the Bombay High Court rejected their anticipatory bail applications and questioned why the trustees had not yet been arrested. A bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan denied the pre-arrest bail pleas of Kotwal and Apte amid widespread protests following the assaults. The court criticized the delay in action by both the school authorities and the police after the families reported the incidents.
Advocate-General Dr Birendra Saraf noted that the police were actively opposing the trustees’ bail pleas and that charge sheets had been filed in both cases. While the main accused, Akshay Shinde, was arrested on August 17 and later killed by police in an alleged encounter, the trustees remained at large.
On August 16, the Badlapur police received complaints about the sexual assault of two four-year-olds by Shinde, a cleaner at the school. Shinde had been hired by the school trustees just 15 days earlier, without a background check. When parents alerted the school authorities about the incident, they initially denied that it had taken place on school grounds. This response sparked a strong protest by the parents outside the school and on the railway tracks at Badlapur station, resulting in a 10-hour halt in train services.
