The Supreme Court, in a judgment on Thursday, September 11, 2025, spoke sharply against the display of communal bias and prejudice within the police force while delivering an unprecedented order that a Special Investigation Team (SIT), comprising equal numbers of Muslim and Hindu officers, be formed by the Maharashtra government to investigate allegations of murder and assault made by a 17-year-old Muslim boy during the Akola communal violence of 2023. Akola is a town in the Vidharbha region of northern Maharashtra.
“When members of the police force don their uniforms, they are required to shed their personal predilections and biases, be they religious, racial, casteist or otherwise. They must be true to the call of duty attached to their office and their uniform with absolute and total integrity. Unfortunately, in the case on hand, this did not happen,” Justice Sanjay Kumar observed in the ruling, delivered by a Bench which also included Justice Satish Chandra Sharma.
Murder most foul, no FIR
The case was based on the complaints made by a teenager, Mohammad Afzal Mohammad Sharif, who allegedly witnessed four men — including one who was later identified to have political connections — fatally attacking a man in an autorickshaw during the May 2023 riots. The men, allegedly mistakenly assuming the boy was a Muslim, assaulted him and left him to die with head injuries.
It was after this incident that both Afzal and his father then went to the police station to file a complaint about the murder he witnessed and the assault on himself, but the police took no action. A subsequent appeal to the Superintendent of the Police (SP) of Akola also came to naught. The murder victim was identified as Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad, who had been plying an autorickshaw owned by a Muslim. Afzal had claimed that Gaikwad was killed under the mistaken impression that he was a Muslim.
In 2023, two groups clashed in Akola, leading to the death of a man, over a social media post.
Sharif, who was a minor (17) at the time of the alleged incident, had earlier approached the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court complaining that the police officers concerned had failed in their duty by not registering an FIR with respect to the alleged attack and assault on him. He claimed that on his way back home that fateful night, he witnessed four unknown persons assaulting an autorickshaw driver. They then assaulted him, too, and damaged his vehicle. Sharif “asserted that he was an eyewitness to the murderous assault on the person in the auto rickshaw, whose name was revealed to him later as Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad.”
The petitioner also stated that it was well within the knowledge of the people of Akola that the deceased was plying the autorickshaw of a Muslim, which bore a sticker with the name “Garib Nawaz”. The appellant stated that under the mistaken identity/belief that the deceased was a Muslim, the four unknown assailants had caused his death and, thereafter, attacked him.
Sharif also told the SC that though an FIR was registered with respect to the murder of the autorickshaw driver, no FIR was registered over the alleged assault on him following which he approached the High Court, which dismissed his plea.
The SC said, “Though the affidavits filed by the police inspector of the Old City Police Station, Akola, tried to attribute motives to the appellant and the same was willingly accepted and acted upon by the High Court, we are not persuaded to agree at this stage. It was for the police to investigate the truth or otherwise of the specific allegations made by the appellant, a 17-year-old boy, who asserted that he was an eyewitness to the murder of Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad and was himself assaulted by the very same assailants.”
“If, in fact, the deceased was really murdered under the impression that he belonged to Muslim community and the assailants were not of that community, that was a fact that had to be ascertained after thorough and proper investigation. When the appellant claimed that he could identify one of the four assailants, that claim also required to be followed up with detailed investigation by ascertaining the location of the person so identified at the relevant time through mobile phone location, call data records, etc.,” the court said.
Negligence by the Police
Upset over the lack of progress in a case of alleged murder during the May 2023 communal riots over a social media post in Maharashtra’s Akola, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed setting up of a “a Special Investigation Team (SIT), comprising senior police officers of both Hindu and Muslim communities”.
“It was for the police to investigate the truth or otherwise of the specific allegations made by the appellant, a 17-year-old boy, who asserted that he was an eyewitness to the murder of Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad and was himself assaulted by the very same assailants… If, in fact, the deceased was really murdered under the impression that he belonged to Muslim community and the assailants were not of that community, that was a fact that had to be ascertained after thorough and proper investigation,” Justice Kumar pointed out.
The court took a stern view of the Akola SP’s failure to act on Afzal’s complaint, observing that “this conduct on the part of a superior police officer of no less a rank than a Superintendent of Police is indeed a cause for great concern”.
“Law requires, nay, ordains that its sentinels be vigilant, prompt and objective in enforcing and securing its mandate. To what extent the guardians of the law, viz., the police, discharge this task without bias and subjectivity is the question that arises in the case on hand,” the court noted.
SC orders SIT probe
Allowing an appeal by a witness in the case, Mohammad Afzal Mohammad Sharif, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and S C Sharma said, the SC directed the Maharashtra Home Secretary to constitute an SIT comprising senior police officers of “both Hindu and Muslim communities, to undertake an investigation into all the allegations made by the appellant, by registering an FIR in connection with the assault upon him on May 13, 2023, and take appropriate action thereon as warranted”. Significantly, the court also ordered the placing on record of the SIT probe report in three months. The State Home Secretary was also directed to initiate appropriate disciplinary action against erring police officials for their “patent dereliction of duties”.
SC order can be read here.
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