Ryan murder case: Juvenile will be tried as an adult
GURGAON: The 16-year-old juvenile accused in the Ryan school murder case will be tried as an adult, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ruled on Wednesday.
The Class 11 student of Ryan International School, Bhondsi, is accused of slitting the throat of 8-year-old Class 2 student Pradhyumn Thakur in the school toilet on September 8.
Delivering the verdict for the board, principal magistrate Davender Singh said the offence allegedly committed by the accused was “heinous”.
Transferring the case to the special children’s court, Gurgaon, the board held that the circumstances show the teenager was “mature enough” to understand the consequences of his alleged act and to think of ways to escape from lawful punishment.
The Gurgaon police had first arrested the school’s bus conductor, alleging he had tried to sexually assault Pradhyumn and killed him when the Class 2 boy resisted.
The case was later handed over to the CBI, which detained the Class 11 student on November 7.
After investigations, the CBI accused him of murdering the victim to get an exam and a parent-teacher meeting deferred. While the teenager’s family expressed disappointment over the order, the victim’s family and their counsel Sushil Tekriwal said they were satisfied. They said they were fighting to set a precedent so that murders by children would stop. “We were hopeful from the beginning that justice will come our way. Though it’s a long way to go, the first hurdle is over,” said Barun Thakur, Pradhyumn’s father. The board dismissed the defence’s claim that the alleged offence of 302 IPC (murder), which entails a maximum punishment of 10 years, is not made out against the boy.