The police “will not clap” if they are attacked, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday about the custodial death of a man accused of sexually abusing two minor girls in Badlapur, reported India Today.

Fadnavis was speaking at the Mumbai Conclave organised by India Today. He claimed that the police shot the man in self-defence.

“We do not believe in encounters,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said. “I personally believe that the rule of law must be followed and, accordingly, the criminal must be punished and that must be done quickly.”

The man, Akshay Shinde, allegedly sexually abused the minors on August 12 in their school, where he worked as a janitor. Four days later, one of the children reported the incident to her parents who approached the police. Shinde was arrested on August 17.

On Monday, Shinde was being taken from Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai to Thane in connection with a separate case of sexual assault filed by his second wife in 2022.

He allegedly snatched a police weapon, opened fire at security personnel and was shot dead in retaliatory firing.

After Shinde was killed, hoardings congratulating Fadnavis were erected across Mumbai, India Today reported. Fadnavis said he neither supported the hoardings nor the celebrations that followed Shinde’s death.

“Putting up such hoardings is absolutely wrong,” he said. “This should not happen at all. I believe that this glorification of such an incident should not happen.”

The deputy chief minister said that the state’s Crime Investigation Department would conduct an impartial inquiry into the incident.

Fadnavis’ statements at the conclave came a day after the Bombay High Court questioned whether Shinde’s death was indeed the result of an “encounter”.

A bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan was hearing a petition filed by Shinde’s father seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team into his son’s death.

The court questioned the claim made by the police that Shinde had snatched an officer’s weapon. It also asked why Shinde was shot in the head, and not on his hands or legs first. “How could we believe that the police, who were trained in firing, couldn’t overpower the accused?” the bench asked.

Noting that the officers could have overpowered Shinde, the court said that the police’s claim of an “encounter” appeared to be dubious.