Police also paraded Kumar in front of news channel cameras and made him confess the crime before journalists. Three years after a Class 2 student was found murdered in his school in Gurgaon and the school bus conductor arrested by the local police, the CBI has filed a chargesheet against four Gurgaon police officers for falsely implicating him in the case.
The agency has filed a supplementary chargesheet in a special court in Panchkula accusing the then SHO of Bhondsi police station Narender Singh Khatana, sub-inspector Shamsher Singh, ASI Subhash Chand and ACP (Sohna) Barem Singh for arresting conductor Ashok Kumar for the murder despite him being innocent.
CBI, which had been handed over the investigation, did not prosecute Ashok Kumar and had instead arrested a student for the murder. The eight-year-old victim was found with his throat slit near the school toilet on September 8, 2017, within half-an-hour of his father dropping him to the school.
Gurgaon police had arrested the conductor, accusing him of murder, within the next two days. The police showed recovery of a knife from him and claimed he had wanted to sodomise the child and when the child raised an alarm, Kumar killed him.
Police also paraded Kumar in front of news channel cameras and made him confess the crime before journalists.
The CBI, however, found the claims of police to be false and instead arrested a 16-year-old, who had allegedly killed the child in a bid to postpone school exams.
The CBI has charged the police officers under IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 166A (disobeying directions under law), 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 330 (police officer torturing someone to confess a crime) and 506 (criminal intimidation), officials said.
The agency had examined teachers, students and scanned local markets, which led them to a senior student.
The juvenile was apprehended in the murder on November 7, 2017, CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said.
“It was revealed during CBI investigation that the conductor earlier arrested by Gurgaon Police was not involved in this murder case. During further investigation, the alleged role of the said police officials came to light and a supplementary chargesheet was therefore filed against them,” he said.
According to the agency, the juvenile, believed to be weak in his studies, allegedly slit the victim’s throat to get the school to declare a holiday in order to defer a scheduled parent-teacher meeting (PTM) and an examination.