Ryan murder: Haryana Minister asked us not to insist on CBI probe, alleges Pradyuman's father

GURUGRAM: Seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur’s father has claimed that Haryana Minister Rao Narbir Singh approached him not to insist on a CBI probe into the case. 

"Haryana Minister Rao Narbir Singh came to us and asked not to insist on CBI inquiry as it will take time, and trust Police probe. I said if CBI also comes to the same conclusion as Police then we will accept it, but we want CBI probe first," Pradyuman's father Barun Thakur said.

In his defence, the minister said that he had just asked the parents to give the police a chance to solve the case. "I had just said that no government can recommend CBI inquiry on the same day of the incident. I told victim the family to let the police probe for a week or so if you are not satisfied then will recommend CBI," Rao Narbir Singh said.

The father reportedly said that the PWD, Forest and Civil Aviation Minister reached their house in Maruti Kunj on Sohna Road on September 14 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," he 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 probe into Pradhuman's 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.