Gurgaon school murder: witnesses say Pradyuman Thakur was taken to hospital by the alleged killer
Highlights
- Police say investigating "discrepancies in the school's version"
- Pradyuman, 7, was murdered last week at Gurgaon school
- He was carried to car to be taken to hospital by alleged killer: witness
Gurgaon's Ryan International School, where seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur was murdered last week, did not reopen today for senior school exams like it had declared earlier. The school remains a crime scene nearly a week after the Class 2 student was found with his throat slit in a toilet near his classroom. The police are investigating important discrepancies in the school's version of the murder and its first response. Witnesses say the child was carried to a car to be taken to hospital by the school bus conductor who was later arrested for the murder.
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Pradyuman was slashed on the neck twice with a knife and he couldn't cry for help as his wind pipe was severed, says his post-mortem report. Doctors have also said he died of excessive bleeding and there is no sign that he was sexually assaulted.
The child, say doctors, died within two minutes of the attack. However, the school authorities had claimed that the child was alive when he was taken to the hospital.
This is one of the discrepancies that still remain in the nearly week-old case. Witnesses say they saw two teachers order bus conductor Ashok Kumar - later arrested for the murder - to carry the child to a car.
Ashok Kumar allegedly confessed within minutes of questioning by the police that day. His colleague, school bus driver Saurabh Raghav has claimed that he is a scapegoat.
The Gurgaon police have told a court that the crime scene had been tampered with, and that it suspected the involvement of a third person who may have escaped.
Yesterday, however, senior police officer Biren Singh said: "Only Ashok has murdered Pradyuman, no other person is involved."
The murder, which triggered massive protests by parents at various branches of Ryan International, has shocked the police and governments into urgent action to secure schools. Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi and Prakash Javadekar were to meet today to discuss safety measures but the meeting was postponed.
The Ryan International Group's founding chairman Augustine Pinto, 73, and his wife, managing director Grace Pinto, 62, have been granted protection from arrest by a court till Wednesday. Their son Ryan Pinto, the group's Chief Executive Officer, had also applied for anticipatory bail.
Ryan International school management moved Supreme Court for transfer of case outside Haryana for 'fair trial'. On Monday, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Haryana government after Varun Thakur petitioned for a CBI probe into his son's murder and safety guidelines for children in schools.
Two officials of the Ryan International School have been arrested after an investigation pointed at serious security lapses. Many of the school's CCTV cameras were not working and a part of the boundary wall was missing. Also, the support staff were using the same toilets as students.
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