TEEN ON MURDER TRIAL
CBI files 5,000-page charge sheet Found fingerprints of accused at the crime scene Teenager’s mobile data establishes guilt Internet behaviour was also incriminating One of his searches was "how to remove bloodstains" "Behavioural analysis" by psychiatris
The CBI has filed a 5,000-page charge sheet in the Ryan murder case and charged a 16-year-old Class XI student with the murder of eight-year-old Pradyuman Thakur, a class II student, who was found in the school washroom with his throat slit.
The CBI told the court that it has clinching evidence against the Class XI student: it found his fingerprints at the crime scene and the teenager’s mobile data also established his guilt. The charge-sheet refers to the accused boy as "Bholu" and the murdered child as "Prince", as decided by the court. The accused’s internet behavior was also incriminating, said the CBI. One of his searches was "how to remove bloodstains".
Unusually, a "behavioural analysis" by psychiatrists of the student before and after the crime has also been included in the charge-sheet.
The juvenile accused had also asked at least six of his friends to get poison or a knife for him to kill “some child,” so that the parentteacher meeting and examinations were cancelled, the chargesheet states. The CBI charge-sheet also says the accused teen will be tried as an adult. After the Nirbhaya case in 2012, laws were amended to facilitate the trial of juveniles
(between 16 and 18) as adults in particularly heinous crimes.
In December, the Juvenile Justice Board had ruled that Bholu, whom the CBI had arrested weeks earlier, would be tried as an adult. If convicted, the accused will stay in a correctional home till he is 21 years old after which the court can shift him to a jail or grant him bail.
A school bus conductor, who was arrested hours after the murder and presented to the media as the main accused, will be discharged, the special court was told. Ashok Kumar, who spent two months in jail, will now become a witness for the CBI.