Villagers protest over rape-murder of 5-year-old
Hundreds of villagers, primarily women, blocked the road connecting Falakata in Alipurduar district today to protest the alleged rape and murder of a five-year-old girl.
Arrested for murdering Class 2 student Pradhuman Thakur of Ryan International School in Gurugram, bus conductor Ashok Kumar after being released from jail has said that he was “tortured and forced to confess” by the police.
Ashok said that he was in a lot of pain and his wife told the media that, “Police beat him up, hung him upside down, tortured him and even sedated him to make him confess.”
The 42-year-old Kumar was arrested on the same day that seven-year-old Pradhuman’s body was found in the washroom of school with throat slit.
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The Haryana Police had claimed that the child was murdered by the bus conductor allegedly after he failed to sodomise the boy.
However, two school employees — bus driver Saurav Raghav and gardener Harpal as well as Kumar’s father Amichand had alleged that he was being made a scapegoat in the child’s murder since he is poor. Amichand said his son was drugged and brutally tortured by police to own up the crime.
The state police claim was being questioned right from the very beginning – and more so after the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The agency had, on November 8, taken a Class 11 student of the same school in custody for the murder. As per the agency, the senior student killed his junior just to postpone a parent-teacher meeting and unit test that day.
Although the CBI has not granted clean chit to the bus conductor, it has also not found any clinching evidence against him.
A court on Tuesday had granted bail to Ashok Kumar after his lawyer Mohit Verma filed an application on November 16.
Additional District and Session Judge Rajni Yadav granted him bail on Rs 50,000 bond.
The CBI was asked to submit the status report in the court after arguments by all parties on November 20, and the judge had reserved the decision for Tuesday.
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