New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) held a press conference on Wednesday, confirming a Class 11 student was detained in connection with the murder of a second grader at the Ryan International School in Gurgaon. The seven-year-old Pradyuman was found with throat slit inside a washroom at Gurgaon, Haryana’s Ryan International School. The CBI on Wednesday apprehended a school senior for Pradyuman’s murder, saying the Class XI student planned the killing in order to get scheduled school exams and a parent-teacher meeting postponed.
A bus conductor was arrested in September over the alleged sexual assault and murder of 8-year-old Pradyuman. The boy was found outside a school toilet, crawling and bleeding profusely before he died. The matter was later handed over to the CBI after the victim’s parents demanded an independent probe and moved the Supreme Court.
The Class XI student is the prime suspect in Pradyuman’s killing, the CBI said, raising questions over how the Gurgaon Police, which first handled the probe, landed on bus conductor Ashok Thakur as the murderer.
Sources from within the CBI told a leading media house that the bus conductor was interrogated by agency’s investigators and said that Gurgaon Police coerced him into confessing to Pradyuman’s murder.
Ashok Kumar, the sources added, also told the CBI he was made to sign a “blank paper” and was forced to speak to the media under duress. The last bit is a likely reference to Ashok Thakur confessing to murdering Pradyuman Thakur in front of media cameras on the day after the killing.
The CBI, however, has ruled out his involvement in the murder, saying Ashok Thakur is “not in the picture” as far as Pradyuman’s actual killing is concerned. The prime suspect, the agency has said, is the Class XI minor student.
Media reports said that CBI has reviewed school records of the class 11 student and found that the student in question was not doing well in studies. The investigative agency also claimed that the detained student used to carry a knife to school sometimes and he was undergoing mental health treatment for a year, said a few TV reports. Another unconfirmed report said that apart from Pradyuman, there were four people in a CCTV footage – Ashok (the bus conductor), the Class 11 suspect and two other students. CBI sources also claimed that the murder weapon has been recovered.
According to TV reports, the suspect was weak in studies and the CBI got suspicious because the student told his classmates exams will be postponed.
