Gurgaon pvt school murder case: CBI relied on 127 witnesses to prove case

Agency listed 204 pieces of evidence, along with its chargesheet, before the court on Monday. Recorded statements under Section 164 of the CrPC, before a magistrate, giving them higher credibility during trial in comparison to a statement recorded by a police officer

The CBI got the statement of as many as 19 material witnesses recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) before a magistrate in the case pertaining to the murder of a class 2 student of a private school in Gurgaon.

CBI officials carry a trunk with 29 spiral volumes of the chargesheet, which included list of witnesses, forensic reports, fingerprints reports, witness statements, emails exchanged between school principal and management, and evidence which led the CBI to the 16-year-old accused. (Leena Dhankhar/HT Photo)

The statement recorded before a magistrate has higher credibility during trial in comparison to a statement recorded by a police officer, which has no evidentiary value.

At least five classmates of the juvenile accused recorded their statement that on August 19, 2017, when they were sitting on the first bench of the class, the accused came and told them to bring poison as he was planning to mix the poison in the water bottle of some child or in the water tank to kill a student or someone else with the motive to cancel the parent-teacher meeting and delay the exams. The accused also offered his classmates money to buy the poison, and said he will pay once they bring the chemical.

In all, the agency has relied upon 127 witnesses to prove its case against the juvenile accused.

The CBI also listed 204 pieces of evidence, along with its chargesheet, before the court of additional sessions judge Jasbir Singh Kundu on Monday.

Among those whose statements were recorded before the magistrate include more than half-a-dozen school students, teachers, other members of the staff, and also bus conductor Ashok Kumar, who was first accused of the murder and arrested by the police.

These statements helped the CBI get a picture of what may have happened on September 8, 2017, when the class 2 student was found lying in a pool of blood in a washroom of the school.

Another witness, the physical education teacher of the school, told that the accused had told him that a student was lying near the toilet of the ground floor and is vomiting blood. But, a few seconds earlier he had informed the gardener that the child was lying inside the toilet. Hence, there were contradictions in the statement given by the accused.

Another fellow student, who had met the juvenile accused outside the toilet corridor, said he had seen the victim crawling and collapsing at the gate, and he had seen the accused coming out of the washroom; after that he saw the gardener and the bus conductor coming from the side where the water cooler is kept.

According to the chargesheet, the juvenile accused had told another student: “don’t prepare for the exams. They are not going to be held this time. Don’t waste your time.” On being asking why the exams are not going to be held, the juvenile accused had told him, “bas aise hi nahi honge (they just won’t be conducted this time)” and he went back to his seat, the chargesheet read.

In one of the statements, recorded before a magistrate, a student had said he had received a phone call from the accused a week after the incident. The boy told the magistrate he never met the accused or spoke with him on the morning of the incident. But the accused had claimed before the police that it was this boy who had asked him to stop near the toilet. However, the schoolmate refused to lie about the episode where the schoolmate asked the accused what was he doing on the ground floor on the day of incident, to which the accused is said to have replied: “maje (fun)”.