Ryan: Juvenile was cops’ prime witness
CBI PROBING TO SEE IF THERE WAS A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO FRAME THE BUS CONDUCTOR
GURGAON/NEWDELHI: The juvenile arrested by the CBI on charges of murdering Pradhyumn Thakur, the eight-year-old student of Ryan International School, was a prime witness of Gurgaon police that probed the case before it was handed over the central agency.
Court documents accessed by HT show Gurgaon Police got recorded the juvenile’s statement before a magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code— four days after Haryana CM ML Khattar said the case was being handed over the CBI.
Courts accord greater credibility to statements recorded under section 164 but a statement to police holds no evidentiary value.
Pradhyumn’s father Barun termed as ‘shocking’ the recording of statements after the CM’S announcement. “This indicates Gurgaon police were botching up the investigation.”
The police initially arrested bus conductor Ashok Kumar on charges of sexually assaulting and murdering the student. But the CBI ruled out sexual assault.
The CBI said the juvenile killed Pradhyumn as he wanted the examination and a parentteacher meeting to be postponed.
According to sources, the role of Gurgaon police officials is under the CBI’S scanner and all aspects, including if there was a deliberate attempt to frame Kumar, are being probed.
Besides the juvenile, the police also got recorded school gardener Harpal’s statement before a magistrate. Khattar had announced the transfer of the case on September 15 .
Court documents show the statements of Harpal and the juvenile were recorded before the magistrate on September 18 and 19, respectively. But, technically, the probe remained with police for another week as paperwork was completed on September 22 when the CBI formally took over.
Experts say there is no bar on police to stop the probe once an announcement is made to hand over the case to a federal agency.
“The police was within its rights to continue the probe but here the question is why it took a week for the case to reach CBI. The correspondence between the Centre and state government could have been completed in a day once the CM had agreed to a CBI probe,” said NR Wasan,chief of Bureau of Police Research.