Badlapur (Maharashtra): After over 12 hours of a rail-roko agitation, police used the lathi-charge to disperse thousands of protestors from the Badlapur railway station, about 51 km from Mumbai, in Maharashtra on Tuesday.
People had sprung out of the blue to express their outrage at the reported rape of two preschool children at an Adarsh Vidya Prasarak Sanstha-run school last week.
The public’s demand for justice was unwavering. They insisted that the main perpetrator, former contract sweeper Akshay Shinde, who was detained in relation to the alleged sexual assault of the two four-year-old girls, be arrested.
Despite repeated requests from the Thane Police and the Central train officials, the crowds—estimated to number more than 25,000—refused to disperse from the area around the AVPS school premises, the train station, and the roads leading to it.
After the police managed to evacuate the area, suburban train services—which had been suspended due to the agitation by the locals—were finally anticipated to restart, bringing a semblance of normalcy back to the area.
A few demonstrators threw stones at the police officers attempting to disperse them from the railroad rails.
A few police personnel were injured in stone pelting though the police sources said that the situation is under control.
Despite the police’s repeated requests for the protestors to desist from their agitation, they persisted, and the police eventually used lathi charges.
When the crowds eventually dispersed, at least seven individuals were arrested for assaulting the police teams, and numerous others—including several women—were lightly hurt by caning. A few private vehicles were also damaged because of the stone-throwing.
In an attempt to calm the demonstrators, Minister of Rural Development Girish Mahajan also got involved, but they did not respond.
The demonstrators insisted on hanging the accused right away.
In the interim, a delegation from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) will visit Thane to investigate the situation.
The NCPCR questioned why the police took so long to file the FIR and promised to hold them accountable.
NCPCR Chairperson Priyank Kanungo said, “The school’s attitude in this case was insensitive. They tried to suppress the case. The concerned police station did not register an FIR in due time… Action should be taken against the school administration or those responsible for not registering the FIR and suppressing the case.”
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray condemned the incident and said, “Strict action must be taken, and such cases cannot afford to disappear in the long pending process of justice. I came to know that the Badlapur school where the incident took place belongs to some BJP party workers. However, I do not intend to bring politics in it.”
The Central Railways said that the agitation resulted in the cancellation of over two dozen suburban services on the affected section and the diversion of several long-distance incoming and outgoing services. Many long-distance trains were diverted through the Karjat-Panvel-Bhiwandi section.
The CR said the trains that were diverted included the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus-Bhubaneshwar Konark Express, the CSMT-Hyderabad Express and its return service, the Shri Ganganagar-Tiruchirapalli Express, the Udaipur-Mysore Express, the Chennai-CSMT Express, the CSMT-MAS Express and its return service, the Pune-Nizamuddin Duronto Express, the Barmer-Yeshwantpur Express, the Solapur-CSMT Vande Bharat Express, and the Coimbatore-LTT.
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–IANS
