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Ryan murder: Accused showed no suspicious behaviour after incident, says bus driver
Saurabh Raghav, the driver, said that after the incident Kumar told him that his clothes were stained with blood because he picked up the eight-year-old victim from the school toilet as no one was ready to touch the profusely bleeding boy.
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The driver of the Ryan International School bus, in which accused Ashok Kumar worked as a conductor, said that the 42-year-old seemed calm and did not display any sign of committing a heinous crime despite his blood-stained clothes.
Saurabh Raghav, the driver, said that after the incident Kumar told him that his clothes were stained with blood because he picked up the eight-year-old victim from the school toilet as no one was ready to touch the profusely bleeding boy. He neither looked shocked nor showed any suspicious behaviour.
It was round 8.10am that Kumar came to the bus with his blood-stained clothes and Raghav, who was going to a CNG station, asked him to stay in school and change his clothes. “When Ashok met me he looked pretty normal and did not look as if he had committed a heinous crime, as is being alleged,” said Raghav, who has been driving the bus for last three years.
However, on Friday, Raghav and around 20 other staffers, including some teachers, had to stay back at the school till late in the night as police officials questioned them about the incident. They were let off at 1.30am.
“I was tensed and under immense pressure as I was the only driver who had been stopped from going back home. A police official also asked me to confess saying that Kumar had told me about the murder,” Raghav told Hindustan Times on Sunday.
He said despite sustained questioning he stuck to the truth. “There was no knife in the bus as I had cleaned the tool box on Thursday. We never kept any weapon in the vehicle,” he added.
When asked why Kumar used the toilet inside the school building, Raghav said they had repeatedly asked him not to use it but he did not listen. “There is no such facility for the drivers in the school and Kumar used to go there,” he said.
However, the Gurgaon police maintained that Kumar did keep a knife with himself which was used by him to commit the crime. “The accused has confessed to killing the boy with a knife after a failed attempt to molest him. Senior officials also cross-examined him to verify his confession,” said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.
