Gurgaon schoolboy murder: SIT, CBSE teams inspect Ryan school

GURUGRAM: Five days after the gruesome murder of a seven-year-old Gurgaon schoolboy, SIT teams today searched the Ryan International School here for clues to the crime while a CBSE panel also inspected the premises to examine loopholes in security arrangements. The Gurgaon Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the crime also took samples of fingerprints and shoes at the crime scene, including the toilet, a day after recreating the sequence of events there. The SIT clicked photos and shot videos of the suspected places to examine the nature of the crime again. “The SIT does not want to spare a single piece of evidence which can be important and work as a key breakthrough for us to solve this case. With three days left for the submission of charge sheet in court, we have got possible positive leads against the accused school bus conductor Ashok Kumar,” a senior SIT officer told PTI. The five-member CBSE team headed by D Arun Kumar, Deputy Director, Central Board of Secondary Education (Security), inspected every corner of the school in Bhondsi, Gurgaon to examine the security loopholes inside the school, clicked photographs and videographed the lapses found. The team reached the school at around 10 am and inspected the school till 1 pm however it ignored the media glare. Sources said the CBSE team will submit its report to the human resource development (HRD) ministry on Class 2 student Pradhuman Thakur’s murder inside the school toilet on September 8. With just three days left for the SIT to submit its final charge sheet before the Sohna court on Saturday, four SIT teams also reached the school for forensic analysis and FSL samples. “We have sent Kumar’s blood samples, his clothes and garment samples for DNA test and forensic examination at the Forensic Laboratory in Madhuban at Karnal. His potency test was also conducted for legal reasons,” the SIT officer said. Two students whose statements were recorded as eyewitnesses before a duty magistrate in the Sohna court, have been given police protection outside their homes, he said. The officer added besides this, parallel questioning of all suspects who are on the police radar whether it is the suspended school principal, senior management officials, or staff members, is being conducted. “Some more arrests are likely to be made,” he said. Meanwhile, Pradhuman’s classmate, who was told by a schoolteacher to clean the victim’s blood-soaked bag and bottle, remains traumatised. The Class 2 student is still in trauma and does not want to go school, saying “I do not wish to go to school as someone murdered Pradhuman. I used to play with him in school. Someone will also slit my throat, now I am afraid”. School gardener Harpal Singh is also a key eyewitness in the incident. He said he was working on the flowers when he heard a commotion as two children who went to change their taekwondo dress in the toilet, found the mortally wounded Pradhuman lying in a pool of blood, and raised an alarm. “Ashok Kumar carried Pradhuman and placed him in the rear seat of the car which was driven to hospital by a school bus driver, while suspended Principal Neerja Batra headed to hospital in her personal car,” Singh said. “I did not see any suspicious activities of Ashok Kumar and he was behaving normally although his shirt was also soaked in blood as he carried Pradhuman. He was very simple. I do not know if he killed Pradhuman, which is what the police is claiming, it is a matter of investigation,” he said. The school remained closed for students today while its two branches in Noida and NCR were opened where some parents protested and raised question marks over students’ security. They demanded the school management install more CCTV cameras to keep every corner of the schools under watch.