Ryan case: We erred, admit cops

After facing flak from all quarters, the Haryana Police accepted on Saturday that omissions took place on their part during the probe into the murder of seven-year-old Ryan International School student, Pradyuman Thakur.

Gurugram Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar called a meeting of the first investigating team, which had arrested bus conductor Ashok Kumar and declared him a paedophile, to pull the officers up. The team members admitted that they erred.

The cops also admitted that they didn't watch the closed circuit television (CCTV) footage carefully. The initial eight seconds of the footage shows the now accused teenager calling Pradyuman to the washroom. The team members, however, remained silent on exactly how they made this grave error.

Khirwar then slammed the cops and sought an explanation for the botched-up probe. He also sought a complete inquiry report on the matter and the exact details of the police officers who analysed the CCTV footage. He further sought to know what circumstantial evidence led the team to declare Ashok as the murderer.

Also, the Class XI student, now accused of having murdered Pradyuman, was taken to the scene of crime, where the incident was recreated. Another student, teachers, and staff were also called to the scene.

"The CBI team used a giant stuffed teddy bear in place of Pradyuman and directed the accused student to recreate the entire sequence of events," a senior CBI officer said, adding that teachers and staff members were interrogated about the murder. The agency sleuths remained in the premises for three-and-a-half hours to collect evidence and identify witnesses in the case.

A juvenile court has sent the accused to the Faridabad observation home, where he will remain till November 22.

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has started probing whether the first team deliberately implicated the bus conductor.

The agency's initial probe into the matter indicated that "evidences were planted" to make the it appear as if Ashok was the killer.

According to the CBI investigation, the cops planted a blood-soaked knife in Ashok's possession and also tortured bus driver Saurav Raghav, to make him accept that there was a knife in the bus tool box. In a statement before the CBI, Raghav had said that on September 6, he cleaned the toolbox and there was no knife in it. He had also pointed out that if someone kept a knife in the toolbox, it would have been captured by one of the two cameras in the bus.

The Gurugram Police had further claimed that Ashok had taken the knife from the bus toolkit and was cleaning it in the school washroom when he chanced upon Pradyuman.

Pradyuman was found dead inside the toilet of Ryan International School, with his throat slit, on September 8.

Botched-up probe by haryana police

• According to the CBI, the cops planted a blood-soaked knife in Ashok’s possession and also tortured bus driver Saurav Raghav
• The cops had claimed that Ashok had taken the knife from the bus toolkit to clean when he chanced upon Pradyuman