‘Not guilty’: Class 11 Ryan boy retracts his confession

GURGAON/NEWDELHI: The juvenile accused of murdering Class 2 student Pradhyumn Thakur at Gurgaon’s Ryan International School has retracted the confession he was said to have made before investigators, sources told HT on Monday.

The investigators forced him to confess, the accused stated on Monday before a legal-cum-probation officer from the district child protection unit appointed by the Juvenile Justice Board to conduct a social investigation, sources said. The boy is said to have alleged the investigators beat him up and recorded the confession in their own words.

A CBI spokesperson refused to comment.

When the officer and a team of CBI officials reached the observation home in Faridabad on Monday, they got to know the accused’s family members were present there, sources said. “To verify their presence and to check whether they met the accused, agency officials have asked for CCTV footage as meetings are not allowed on Mondays. Family meetings can only take place on Tuesdays and Fridays,” a source said.

Legal experts said a confessional statement before a police officer did not hold any evidential value.

“But if the statement of the accused leads to the recovery of any article connected with the crime, the confession can have a little more credibility. But even then the investigating agency will have to prove the case beyond doubt,” said Karan Singh, a lawyer.

The accused narrated a different sequence of events before the visiting officer to the one he purportedly told investigators in his confession.