Gurugram school murder: Cops summoned for ‘framing' bus conductor

Hindustan Times

12 hours ago

Gurugram: A special CBI court in Panchkula has summoned four Haryana Police officers accused of tampering with evidence and falsely implicating a school bus conductor in the 2017 murder of a seven-year-old boy inside a school toilet in Gurugram's Bhondsi.
The CBI court has directed all four accused — then DSP Birem Singh, inspector Narinder Singh Khatana, sub-inspector Shamsher Singh and executive sub-inspector Subhash Chand— to appear on July 15, officials aware of the matter said.
Eight years after the murder of the child, the CBI court has summoned the four accused officers following a petition filed by the victim's father, highlighting the prolonged delay in action against them and urging swift judicial intervention.
The four police officials face serious charges under IPC sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 166A (disobeying legal direction), 167 (framing incorrect document), 194 (fabricating evidence to procure conviction of a capital offence), 330 (torture to extort confession), and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The order was passed by Special Judicial Magistrate Anil Kumar Yadav.
The incident occurred on September 8, 2017, when the body of the Class II student—referred to as Prince to protect his identity— was discovered in a toilet in the school with his throat slit. Within hours, the Haryana Police arrested Ashok Kumar, a school bus conductor, claiming he had confessed to the crime. The arrest was met with massive public outrage, especially after glaring inconsistencies surfaced in the investigation. Days later, the probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which later apprehended a Class XI student from the same school—referred to as Bholu—for the murder.
Kumar was acquitted on February 28, 2018, by a special court. He recalled the trauma that continues to haunt him. 'I was tortured, beaten, hung upside down, and had my head submerged in water by the police just to force a confession,' he said. 'I was innocent, yet they paraded me before the media, ruined my reputation, and humiliated me in front of my family. Even now, I struggle to find work. I was framed to protect the real accused. I want to see all four officers behind bars,' he said.
Kumar had earlier rejected a compensation of ₹1 lakh offered by the Gurugram Police in May 2019, calling it 'an insult' to the trauma he and his family endured. 'That money cannot erase what I went through. It was never about money—it is about dignity and accountability,' he said.
The child's father, who moved the latest application leading to the summons, expressed satisfaction over the court's order. 'It is a step closer to truth and justice. Those who tried to bury the truth must face the law,' he said.
The court also dismissed the Haryana home department's claim that sanction was needed to prosecute the officers, stating that acts like fabricating evidence to implicate an innocent man cannot be passed off as 'official duty' under Section 197 of the CrPC. The summons will be served using email and WhatsApp, to ensure the accused appear before the court without further delay.
The court said there is incriminating material on the file collected by CBI and all the documents allegedly showing involvement of the conductor, have been fabricated with the intention of implicating him falsely. 'It becomes clear that these accused have misused their official position under the colour of their official duty and they have committed serious offences that is why CBI, the premier investigating agency of our country has filed a charge-sheet against these accused under section 120B read with section 166A, 167, 330 and 506 of IPC and substantive offences thereof,' read the order.
Meanwhile, the victim's counsel Sushil Tekriwal said, 'The most brutish, barbaric, cruel and diabolic acts commissioned by the four senior police officers are prima facie construed to be extra-judicial acts. They will now face sentence up to life if convicted. The pedestal of substantial justice can never be denied though delayed. The acts of police force was also gruesome to the extent that they all jointly and collectively and knowingly were not only fabricating the evidence, preparing false and incorrect documents with an intention and knowledge to falsely implicate an innocent as an accused without any evidence but were planting evidence for the said purpose, and writing case documents and case diaries at the subsequent stage and without physical presence but in back date corroborated by CDR locations.'
The development comes more than three years after the CBI filed its supplementary charge sheet on January 6, 2021, but the case remained stalled due to lack of prosecution sanction. The CBI had accused the officers of collusion and procedural misconduct during the initial investigation in 2017.