Badlapur Accused's Killing Shouldn't Be Glorified: Devendra Fadnavis At CNN-News18 Town Hall

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, at the CNN-News18 Town Hall on Friday, said incidents such as the Badlapur one shouldn’t be glorified with slogans.

“I was the CM and home minister of the state from 2014-19. For the past 2.5 years, I have been the home minister. I don’t believe in fake encounters. People should be punished as per the law. The sooner, the better. Rule of the law should be followed. In this case, we had filed the charge sheet in record time. One of the three wives of the accused filed a sexual assault case against him. We were taking him for investigation when he attacked. If someone attacks police, they will retaliate. This led to a storm on social media. It is a medium which praises you, and even brings you down. So many reactions [such as ‘Badla Pura Hua’] came on social media. We shouldn’t praise such incidents.”

Akshay Shinde was killed in an exchange of fire inside a police vehicle when he was being taken to Badlapur from Taloja jail on Monday evening (September 23). He was a sweeper on contract at a kindergarten school in Badlapur, where he allegedly sexually assaulted two four-year-old girls.

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday noted there were discrepancies in the entire timeline leading to Shinde’s death and asked for the call records of all the five people present in the police van at the time of the incident. The court also said the CCTV footage from the time Shinde emerged from the barrack and entered the van, till the time his body reached the hospital, should be seized.

On the court’s reaction to it, Fadnavis said, “The court is doing its job. When it sees the material, there will be observation. Remarks are not observation.”

About the Friday morning incident, where a woman entered the home minister’s office, he said, “She is mentally disturbed. She had attacked others also. The court released her taking it into account. She keeps going around saying she wants to marry actor Salman Khan and asking for his number. She used to sit outside his house, but now the security is beefed up in the wake of Bishnoi threats to the actor. So she is angry that she can’t sit there. She is mentally disturbed, what can we do about it?”

When asked if he was comfortable in his chair, Fadnavis said, “Whichever chair you get, be comfortable in it, or else you will never get a chair.”

Fadnavis was part of a session, Can BJP Get Its Math Right?, held as part of the CNN-News18 Town Hall in Mumbai on September 27. Ahead of the Maharashtra elections, the theme of this edition was ‘Road to Delhi via Mumbai?’