Haryana minister told us not to demand CBI probe: Pradhuman’s father

By Pradeep Singh

Gurugram, Nov 14 (IANS) A day before Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced a CBI probe into the murder of a Class 2 student here, Haryana cabinet minister Rao Narbir Singh told the family not to demand a CBI probe, the boy's father said on Tuesday.

On September 14, Narbir Singh visited the house of seven-year-old Pradhuman Thakur, who was murdered in the Ryan International School on September 8, and spoke strongly against a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), father Barun Chandra Thakur said.

The father told IANS here that the PWD, Forest and Civil Aviation Minister reached their house in Maruti Kunj on Sohna Road and told him not to demand an investigation by the CBI into the murder.

"CBI is just a big name and nothing more. The agency already has lots of workload and it will not be able to probe the case even in a year or more. Haryana Police is a better agency than CBI and it will deliver its report within a stipulated time," Barun Thakur quoted the minister as saying.

"When we said that we want the CBI to investigate the case, the minister argued: 'What will happen if the CBI too comes up with the fact that the school bus conductor Ashok Kumar killed the child after failing to sodomise him'," Thakur said.

Thakur said the minister was accompanied by a man not known to him.

"Prior to that, the minister was present during the cremation of Pradhuman on September 9 and he again visited us on September 10 to pay his condolences but could not meet me," he added.

The minister was not available for his comments on Thakur's claim despite several efforts by IANS to reach him. His personnel secretary Laxinarayan told IANS: "The minister is in Chandigarh. It is not possible to have a word with him."

BJP leaders in Haryana are a divided lot after the CBI declared that the murderer of the Class 2 student was a senior schoolmate and not the bus conductor as alleged by Haryana Police.

The investigation into Pradhuman Thakur's gory killing took a dramatic twist on November 8 when the CBI arrested the Class 11 student, also of Ryan International School, and charged him with murdering the young boy in the school washroom.

Narbir Singh came in support of the Haryana Police and called the arrest of the Ryan student by the CBI "unjustified".

"I am not able to digest the outcome of the investigation carried out by the CBI. The Haryana Police probe was more acceptable," the BJP MLA from Badhshahpur constituency of Gurugram had said.

But Rao Inderjit Singh, a central government minister and an MP from Gurugram, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij and BJP MLA from Gurugram Umesh Aggarwal backed the CBI.