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At least 17 city police personnel and eight railway cops were injured in the incidents of stone-pelting at the railway station and other parts of Badlapur during the protest on Tuesday and the investigators have arrested 72 people in connection with the violence, they said.
According to officials, additional police force has been deployed in the town to maintain law and order, and the situation in the town is limping back to normal.
Entire Badlapur town virtually came to a standstill on Tuesday after thousands of protesters blocked railway tracks at the station and stormed a local school building after the alleged sexual abuse of two girls by the school sweeper in the washroom last week.
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Talking to PTI, DCP Sudhakar Pathare said on Wednesday that internet services in the town have been suspended in the wake of the protest and subsequent violence.
"The internet services will be restored after taking a review of the situation in the town," he said.Most schools in the town remained shut on Wednesday, local people said.
"At least 17 city police personnel, including two officers, were injured as an angry mob attacked them with stones during the protest in Badlapur on Tuesday over the sexual abuse of two girls. We have registered three FIRs on charges of violation of prohibitory orders, armed unlawful assembly, assault, damage to public property, among others against the miscreants," a senior police official in Badlapur said.
The injured police personnel are being treated at different local hospitals, he said.
"A total of 40 persons have been arrested so far in connection with stone-pelting and other crimes. Attempts to identify other offenders are on. CCTVs footages and video news clippings are being examined," he added.
Commissioner of Government Railway Police (GRP) Ravindra Shisve said one FIR has been registered in connection with the violence at Badlapur railway station and 32 persons have been arrested
"Seven to eight railway police personnel, including officials, were injured in the stone-pelting," he said.
"The situation is normal and under control today," he said.
Police on August 17 arrested an attendant at the school for sexually abusing the two girl students of the kindergarten. As per the complaint, he abused the girls in the toilet of the school.
In the wake of the incident, the school management has suspended the principal, a class teacher and a female attendant. The state government on Tuesday ordered the suspension of three police officials, including a senior police inspector, for alleged dereliction of duty in probing the sexual abuse of the two girls.
Angry parents of the schoolchildren and local citizens, including several women, gathered outside the school on Tuesday morning and also resorted to a 'rail roko' protest at the railway station, blocking the path of local trains from around 8.30 am.
Some of the protesters, including women, later damaged the school property by breaking its gate, window panes, benches and doors.
Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly Vijay Wadettiwar on Tuesday alleged that the parents of a girl who was sexually abused at a school in Badlapur were made to sit at the police station for 11 hours to file their complaint.
In a video message posted on X, the Congress leader said the incident -- where two kindergarten girls were allegedly abused inside the school -- was "bigger" than the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a hospital in Kolkata which has produced national outrage.
"Atrocities are committed on a three-and-half years old girl, a four-year-old girl, and at the police station, they (parents) are made to wait for 11 hours when they seek to file a complaint...Is there any sensitivity left? I spoke to the police commissioner and told him that the woman police officer responsible for this delay must be suspended immediately," Wadettiwar said.
Taking a swipe at the Eknath Shinde-led state government's much-advertised Ladki Bahin scheme for women, he asked why the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Ministers were silent about the present case.
Stating that Maharashtra has left Uttar Pradesh behind when it comes to crimes against women, the Congress leader said when a woman doctor was raped and murdered in West Bengal, there was a flurry of accusations against the government there, but the "incident in Badlapur is bigger than that",
The trial of the case should be completed within three months and the accused hanged, the leader of opposition demanded.
A local court on Wednesday extended till August 26 the police custody of the man arrested for allegedly sexually abusing two girls at a school in Badlapur town of Maharashtra’s Thane district.
The accused, who was employed as an attendant at the school where the incident took place last week, was produced before a magistrate at Kalyan in the district this morning amid tight police security.
The court ordered the extension of his police custody till August 26, following which he was taken away by the police in a van, a senior official said.
The police had arrested the accused on August 17.
As per the complaint, he abused two kindergarten girls in the toilet of the school, the police have said.
A massive protest broke out on Tuesday after parents of the school children and local citizens blocked railway tracks at Badlapur station and ransacked a local school building to protest against the incident and to demand strict punishment for the accused.
Following the protest, the Maharashtra government announced formation of a special investigation team headed by senior IPS officer Arti Singh to probe the incident.
Internet services in Badlapur town have been suspended in the wake of the protest and violence.
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