To avoid exam, student killed Pradyuman: CBI

The murder case of a 7-year-old Pradyuman Thakur in a prominent Gurgaon school took a dramatic turn with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) detaining a Class XI student on the charge that he killed the young boy in order to get a scheduled examination and a parent-teacher meeting postponed.

The new twist in the case comes exactly two months after Class II student Pradyuman was found dead with his throat slit in the school's washroom and the subsequent arrest of school bus  conductor Ashok Kumar. Kumar was accused of sexually assaulting the boy before killing him.

The CBI has ruled out sexual assault angle, but the agency said the motive behind the September 8 murder was an attempt by the senior student - a minor studying in commerce stream - to get an examination and a parent-teacher meeting scheduled for the day postponed. He was detained on Tuesday night following hours of questioning by the CBI.  With the CBI finding no evidence against the bus conductor, Haryana Police has egg on its face. It also raises doubts about the conduct of police officials who were accused of being hand in glove with the school authorities to hush up the case.

The boy who is undergoing psychiatric evaluation for the past few months has anger management issues. He also has poor academic records.

Though investigators ruled out that the murder was pre-planned, they said the boy was carrying a knife to school on the day of the incident. A knife has been recovered from the school's washroom.

"After thorough investigation based on scientific evidences, including inspection of scene of crime, forensic analysis, analysis of CCTV and call records, the student has been apprehended," CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.

He said the mobile records of all the suspects were examined. The boy had planned a killing on September 8 but he had not identified his target, he said.

Sources said the CCTV footage showed the boy coming out of the washroom where Pradyuman was found dead. He was one of around half-a-dozen people seen on the CCTV footage entering the washroom when Pradyuman was inside.

He was questioned for the past few days and his changing statements made the investigators suspicious.

However, the boy's father told reporters that his son was being forced to confess and beaten up by investigators. Meanwhile, the bus conductor's wife alleged that Haryana Police framed her husband.  "Now that they have arrested this student, it has been proven that the doubt we had about the police investigation was right," Pradyuman's father Varun Thakur said.