Kids who identified juvenile accused made witnesses
GURGAON: The chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the Gurgaon district court on Monday in the murder case of a class 2 student of a private school in the city, lists 127 witnesses.
The list of witnesses includes 34 school officials, 11 students, 10 CBI officers, two doctors who conducted the victim’s autopsy, family members of the juvenile accused, three family members of the victim, bank employees, Gurgaon police officials and CRPF officials of Kadarpur.
The CBI got the statements of as many as 19 material witnesses recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before a magistrate. Statements recorded before a magistrate have higher credibility during trial in comparison to a statement recorded by a police officer, which has no evidentiary value.
The chargesheet has statements of main witnesses—students who saw juvenile accused come out of the washroom—and CCTV footage to corroborate circumstantial evidence.
It also details the initial confession of the accused recorded by the principal magistrate of the juvenile justice board, his confession in front of his father at the CBI headquarters, and his internet search history which shows he searched for poison and how to destroy the evidence.
The juvenile accused, who was apprehended on November 7 on the charge of killing the eight-year-old, had retracted his confession on November 14.
There are 47 witnesses in the chargesheet whose statements are yet to be recorded. They include the CBI officers, including the investigating officer of the case Ajay Kumar Bassi, DSP (CBI), and two Metropolitan magistrates of Saket Court.
The Delhi-based company, that installed the 16 CCTV cameras in the school and had provided the recording to the Gurgaon police and the CBI, has also been made a witness, but a statement from the company management has also not been recorded.
There are three CRPF officials, who were also involved in the CBI investigations for recreating the crime at the school.
Twenty-three teachers, including the school’s security officer, a nurse, gardener, two school bus drivers, two conductors including Ashok Kumar, are also witnesses.
The teachers are former and present class and subject teachers of the accused.