The murder of Pradyuman Thakur, class 2 student of Gurgaon’s Ryan International School, has not only shocked the nation but also posed a serious question on the safety of kids in the school. Almost daily, we are hearing new revelations in the case and now the Chief Minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar, has fulfilled one of the main demands of the victim’s family as on Friday, he announced investigation of the crime by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CM also stated that the school would be under the control and management of Haryana government for the next 3 months.
Haryana CM Orders CBI Investigation
The CM said this after meeting the parents of Pradyuman,
“This incident (the murder of Pradyuman) was unfortunate… Today I came here to meet the family. There was a demand from the family members and several others for handing over the case to the CBI for investigation. The Haryana Police has been properly conducting a probe in this case. Despite that and in view of the demand, this case is being handed over to the CBI for a probe. I appeal to the CBI to investigate the case as expeditiously as possible.”
The Haryana police was already investigating the case and arrested the school bus conductor Ashok under the charges of murdering Pradyuman by slitting his throat with a kitchen knife after trying to sexually assault him. As per the police, the accused has confessed his crime which he committed in the duration of 15 minutes after the morning assembly of the school. The police is of the opinion that Ashok killed Pradyuman when the class II student resisted Ashok’s attempt of sexually assaulting him and walked out of the toilet.
Conductor is a scapegoat
However, parents of the deceased, their relatives and many others feel that the conductor is being made a scapegoat by cops and the real culprit is someone else.
No sexual assault
The doctor who carried out autopsy also dismissed the police’s theory of sexual assault. As per a report published in HT, Dr. Deepak Mathur stated that Pradyuman was not sodomised and his school uniform didn’t even contain any semen marks but he also said that the picture would be clear only after the forensic report is out.
CCTV Footage
The CCTV clip from the camera which is fixed outside the toilet shows how the seven years old crawled out of the toilet before he collapsed on the wall, holding his neck. It also shows the conductor entering and coming out of the toilet before the student crawled out of the toilet. However, in another video which has recently come to light, Anju Dudeja, the in-charge of junior section, can be seen saying that she and principal, Neerja Batra asked the conductor to bring Pradyuman to the car in which they took him to the hospital. Harpal, the gardener who was also arrested by the police in regard to the case, said that Ashok didn’t have any blood stains on his clothes when he came to the crime spot.
Ashok Is Tortured & Falsely Framed In The Case
As per the family of Pradyuman, the crime was committed just within the 10 minutes of the kid entering his school. If all these people (Anju, Neerja and Harpal) were present there, how is it possible that they didn’t notice any blood stains on the clothes of Ashok before he was asked to carry the boy to the car?
Saurav Raghav, the driver of the bus in which Ashok is a conductor, says that Ashok is being falsely framed in the case and he is innocent. The counsel for Ashok has also stated that the conductor has given his acceptance because he was tortured brutally by the police but in actual fact, he is innocent.
Advocate Mohit Verma told reporters,
“Ashok has been wrongly implicated in the case. He was brutally tortured during police remand, subjected to electric shocks and administered injections of some intoxicant or sedative prior to being presented before the media.”
Police Tortured Them Too…
Harpal and Saurav allege that cops tortured them so that they accept that they are also a part of the crime while the police says that they have enough and strong evidences against Ashok to prove that he has committed the crime.
Post-Mortem Report
In another development, the post-mortem report of Pradyuman states that “shock and haemorrhage” was the reason of his death. The report also states that external injury and its result were also enough to kill him in normal circumstances.
CBSE In Action
The report submitted by the two-member fact finding committee formed by CBSE has talked about many safety violations that have taken place in the school and CBSE has acted upon it by serving a showcause notice to the school. The CBSE has asked the school as to why its affiliation should not be revoked and the school has to answer it within a month.
We will definitely like to see the real culprit behind the bars and schools should take the safety measures to keep the kids safe.