Pradyuman murder: Similarities with Aarushi case, questions had been raised on bus conductor's arrest

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today detained a Class XI student of the Ryan International School, Gurgaon, in the gruesome murder of seven-year-old Pradyuman of the same school on September 8. Sources in the federal investigative agency also indicated that school bus conductor, Ashok, who was arrested by the Gurgaon Police, was "not in the picture".

Doubts had been raised when the Gurgaon Police had arrested Ashok for Pradyuman's murder. Not just citizens but also the victim's parents had questioned the city police's decision of arresting the bus conductor.

Pradyuman's mother had questioned the police's act saying her son did not use the school bus. The parents would drop him to school and pick him up from there. She said the conductor was nowhere in the picture.

She accused the Ryan school principal of framing the bus conductor and "hiding" the truth behind the murder.

Besides Pradyuman's mother, others too had expressed the same sentiments. Though the CBI has not given a complete clean chit to the bus conductor yet, people felt that he had been made a scapegoat and that someone else was the real culprit.

I feel actual culprit in #RyanInternationalSchool murder case isn't the conductor but somebody else. https://t.co/T7spzzcGr4 via @indiatoday

- Kumar Shakti Shekhar (@ShaktiShekhar) September 12, 2017

The Gurgaon Police had arrested Ashok on the same day Pradyuman was found murdered in Ryan School's bathroom. The police had claimed that they had secured a confession from the conductor that he attempted to sexually abuse Pradyuman but killed him when the boy resisted.

But the members of bus conductor's family had alleged that he was being framed.

SIMILARITIES WITH AARUSHI MURDER CASE

By arresting the Class XI student and hinting that the conductor may not have been involved in Pradyuman's murder, the CBI has changed the whole narrative in the Pradyuman murder case.

The sensational Aarushi murder case may have been allegedly botched up by the CBI but it has some similarities with the Pradyuman case. In both the incidents, the local police - the Noida Police and the Gurgaon Police respectively - coming first into the picture arrested the helps.

In the case of Aarushi murder case, Vishnu Sharma, the former domestic help of her parents Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar were named as suspects by the Noida Police. Later, the police arrested Rajesh.

But when the CBI took over the case, they arrested Krishna (alias Kishan), the Nepalese compounder of Rajesh Talwar, after conducting his polygraph test and Narco Analysis test at Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Bangalore. The investigative agency also arrested Raj Kumar, the servant of a doctor friend of the Talwars. After several questions were raised on these arrests, the CBI gave a clean chit to the servants and arrested the Talwars on the charge of "honour killing".

The Talwars were finally acquitted by the Allahabad High Court after a long legal battle and several twists and turns. Questions were raised in the arrest of the bus conductor in Pradyuman murder case.

Pradyuman's parents would only wish that seven-year-old deceased gets justice and his murder does not get botched up as it had happened in the Aarushi murder case.