The Maharashtra Police on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that it would register a First Information Report in connection with the custodial death of a man accused of sexually abusing two minor girls in Badlapur, near Mumbai, in August, Live Law reported.

The police said this would be done by Saturday.

This came after a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Neela Gokhale warned the police and a court-appointed Special Investigation Team appointed by the court of contempt proceedings for not complying with its April 7 order.

On April 7, the court ordered that an FIR be filed against five police officers allegedly involved in the custodial death. In January, a Thane magistrate had told the High Court that they were found responsible.

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”, Bar and Bench had quoted the inquiry report as saying.

The report also said the incident took place 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.

Shinde’s death drew criticism of the state government from Opposition parties, 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.

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