Five police officers have been found responsible for the custodial death of a man accused of sexually abusing two minor girls in Badlapur, near Mumbai, in August, a Thane magistrate told the Bombay High Court on Monday, reported The Indian Express.

Based on the magistrate’s findings, a bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Kedar Gokhale directed the Maharashtra government to register a first information report against the personnel and start further legal proceedings.

The man, Akshay Shinde, allegedly sexually abused the minors on August 12 on the premises of 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 September 23, Shinde died while he was being taken from Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai to the Crime Branch office in Thane in connection with a separate case of sexual assault filed by his second wife in 2022.

The police claimed that Shinde snatched a police weapon and fired at security personnel while in transit. He injured a police officer and was shot dead in retaliatory fire, the authorities had said.

However, the magisterial inquiry into Shinde’s killing found that his fingerprints were not present on the pistol he allegedly snatched and that there was no gunshot residue on his body. This suggested that the “use of force was not justified”, the inquiry report stated, according to Bar and Bench.

The report also said the incident occurred in a moving vehicle and that the police could have “easily handled the situation”.

The personnel responsible for Shinde’s killing were identified as Senior Police Inspector Sanjay Shinde (Thane Crime Branch), Assistant Police Inspector Nilesh More, head constables Abhijeet More and Harish Tawade and a police driver, according to The Indian Express.

Maharashtra’s Chief Public Prosecutor Hiten Venegavkar told the court that the state government would take necessary steps after the inquiry report, including sending it to the State Human Rights Commission.

Shinde’s death drew criticism of the state government from Opposition parties in Maharashtra, with Congress leader and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan alleging that he was killed in a “fake encounter” by the police to “save certain people”.

Shinde’s father, Anna Shinde, had moved the High Court seeking an investigation by a Special Investigation Team into his son’s death.

On October 3, the High Court ordered an expedited magisterial inquiry in the case.