Parents Of Killed Child Are Told Class 11 Student Wanted Exams Delayed

New Delhi: They were first told that a school bus conductor killed their son, Pradyuman, just minutes after the 7-year-old reached his school in Gurgaon. Two months after the killing that shocked the country, the Thakur family has been told that the CBI has identified a new suspect- a student of Class 11 in the same school, Ryan's International, who believed that the crime would ensure that exams would be postponed.

"It is shocking that for such a small reason, my son was murdered," said Jyoti Thakur, Pradyuman's mother. Her husband, Varun Thakur says that it's only now that justice is being done -he says he never accepted the Gurgaon police's claim that Pradyuman was killed by a bus conductor, Ashok Kumar, because he resisted sexual assault in the school's bathroom.

"How could everything including sexual assault happen in such a short time?'' he asked today, repeating the doubts he expressed when the conductor was arrested about 20 hours after Pradyuman's death.
 The CBI took over the case from the Gurgaon police last month and has explained its premise to him, Varun Thakur said from his home in Gurgaon.

"We were in touch with the CBI but they told us all this today. It may seem strange to others - about why a student would do this. But we met a team of officers and they told us how this student has been found guilty. The exam pressure can be tremendous,'' he said.

The CBI says that the teen student it has detained for Padyuman's murder had been seen at school with the knife that was used to kill the young child. The weapon has been found by the CBI in the bathroom. When asked if the multiple lapses by the school - poor security, poor  supervision of children, and the overlooking of a student carrying a knife to school - haunts him, he said, "Whatever has happened to Pradyuman should not happen to any other student. We keep thinking about this - what could have happened if they paid attention.''