BJP appoints Tushar Apte, co-accused in Badlapur sexual abuse case as councillor in Thane district

Mumbai: In what snowballed into a major political issue, the BJP has appointed Tushar Apte — who has been named in the FIR into the sensational Badlapur sexual assault case - was a “coopted” as a councillor of the Kulgaon-Badlapur Municipal Council (KBMC) in Thane district.

Apte was the secretary of the trust, which ran the school in Badlapur, in which the incident took place.

A janitor of the school Akshay Shinde (24), was arrested on 16 August for the sexual assault of two four-year-old girls at the pre-primary school in Badlapur East on 12-13 August 2024.

On 23 September, Shinde died during a scuffle with a police escort team when he snatched the pistol of a police officer inside a police van and injured him and “opened fire” before he was shot dead in a “retaliatory fire” in Mumbra area when being escorted from Taloja Jail to Badlapur.

Akshay Shinde’s parents - Anna Shinde and Alka Shinde and their lawyer Amit Katarnavare have described it as a “fake encounter”.

Around one-and-a-half months after the incident, the police arrested the president and secretary of the school management, Uday Kotwal and Tushar Apte, respectively, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for allegedly failing to report a sexual assault incident involving two minor girls at their school.

As of now, he is in bail and the case is sub-judice.

KBMC chairperson Ruchita Ghorpade has confirmed Apte's appointment. He was greeted after the process of selecting five co-opted councillors of the municipal council was completed on Friday.

Two among them were nominated by the BJP, two by the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and one by the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

Besides Apte, other nominated councillors include Shagof Gore (BJP), Prabhakar Patil (NCP), and Dilip Baikar and Hemant Chature (Shiv Sena).

Defending the decision, BJP councillor Rajan Ghorpade said Apte is a social activist and office-bearer of a reputed educational institution.

"Though he was named as an accused, his guilt has not been proven. The main accused has already been punished. Apte worked actively for the party and contributed to the party candidate's victory, and therefore, he was given this responsibility," Ghorpade said.

The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi slammed the BJP and sought answers from Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is also the state home minister.

"Looking at some recent incidents across the country, it seems the BJP has a policy of giving positions in the party to people associated with the RSS. The incident that happened in Badlapur caused unrest in the town for two days. These directors and trustees had pressured the police to prevent the girl's complaint from being registered. Later, they absconded, and we thought they were still in jail. However, now they have been given a prominent position. The trustees of the school where the incident occurred had exerted pressure through the BJP to prevent the complaint from the minor girl and her parents from being registered,” said Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha member and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut.

In a sharp reaction, NCP (SP) working president Supriya Sule said that the BJP has made clear what its priorities are. "The safety of children and women should be the priority of any government. However, by giving an opportunity to a person accused under the POCSO Act as a co-opted councillor , the BJP has reached the peak of insensitivity. We strongly condemn this," she said.

Former Congress MLA Yashomati Thakur said: “Tushar Apte has been rewarded with a BJP co-opted councillor position. In the Badlapur case, Akshay Shinde's encounter was used for political campaigning in the previous election. But was Akshay Shinde's encounter carried out just to save Apte in this case? The ‘Beti bachao' has remained just a slogan; in reality, BJP is running a 'Save the Criminal' campaign. The daughters of Maharashtra will not forget this!”