I was made scapegoat, will sue police for torture: Ryan School’s bus conductor

The CBI said it has not found evidence of murder against bus conductor Ashok Kumar but he has not been exonerated yet. The agency also did not find any evidence of sexual assault.

The bus conductor who was arrested on charges of murder and sexual assault of eight-year-old Pradyumn Thakur at Gurgaon’s Ryan International School said on Friday he will file a case against Haryana Police and the school management for torturing and defaming him.

A lawyer said Ashok Kumar (in picture) was drugged and tortured by police to confess to a crime he never committed. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

Mohit Verma, the Rohtak-based counsel for Ashok Kumar, said his client was made a scapegoat in the case to protect the real culprit.

His comments came a day after a Class 11 student of the same school was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly murdering the second grader, in a sensational twist to the case that shook the country and raised questions over safety of students inside schools.

Pradyumn was found with his throat slit outside a school toilet on September 8.

“We are waiting for the CBI to file its closure report after which we will file cases against the police and school management for large-scale defamation of Ashok Kumar,” Verma said.

The lawyer said Kumar was drugged and tortured by police to confess to a crime he never committed in front of the media.

“Police clearly botched up the probe. The CBI did not find any motive he could have had in murdering Pradyumn, while they established the motive of the arrested Class 11 boy behind the crime,” he said.

Verma said the central agency reached this conclusion after looking at footage from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera that was rejected by Haryana Police calling it unclear.

“Police had planted everything. They framed an innocent man. Who pressurised police to do (that) is a matter of investigation, but whatever happened to Ashok amounts to torture,” he added.

The CBI said it has not found evidence of murder against Kumar but he has not been exonerated yet. The agency also did not find any evidence of sexual assault, a CBI spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The bar council of Sohna in Gurgaon jointly passed a resolution refusing to fight Kumar’s case after he was initially accused of Pradyumn’s murder after which his family hired Verma.

The 16-year-old student detained by the CBI in connection with Pradyumn’s murder confessed to his crime in front of his father and an independent witness, the agency told a juvenile court.

The court has sent the juvenile to three-day CBI custody.