By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: A day after the brutal murder of a seven-year-old student in Gurgaon’s Ryan International School, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) formed a two-member team to probe into the lapses of the school’s management.
A senior board official said the panel would probe whether the death occurred due to negligence of the school authorities and if the school had adopted safety measures as per CBSE’s by-laws. The report would also dwell on whether the authorities reported the incident to police and the district education officer, the official added.
The team sought the report from its management within two days. The school has also been asked to submit a report within two days along with the copy of the FIR. Similarly, the Education Department of Haryana government also initiated a probe which will submit its report on Monday.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Ryan International School administration suspended its acting principal Neerja Batra and removed all the security staff, said district public relation s officer R S Sangwan.
Parents of the nearly 1,000 students at the school tried to storm the campus on Saturday to demand the arrest of school managers over the case. However, hundreds of police in riot gear guarded the building to avoid a repeat of Friday’s violence when chairs and cupboards were smashed.
The parents also protested for over two hours demanding a CBI probe into the murder while expressing dissatisfaction over the way the investigation was being carried out by the state police. They also demanded that the school management be booked for the killing of the boy.
Reiterating the protesters’ demands, the victim’s mother, reportedly, said she too wanted a CBI inquiry into the matter. “The principal was indifferent when she came to the hospital, put her in jail. I want to know what happened to my child, I want CBI,” she said.
Officials said that the boy’s post mortem had been carried out and the body was handed over to his father. The boy’s father, Varun Thakur, who works as a quality manager with a private firm in Gurgaon, had accused the school administration of negligence
Ryan International School was caught in another controversy last year after a six-year-old student was found dead in a water tank at its New Delhi establishment. Police arrested the principal, a teacher and three other staff for negligence in that case.
Investigation details
Simardeep Singh, Gurgaon deputy commissioner of police said, “Ashok Kumar, the prime suspect, has confessed to the crime during questioning.” The boy resisted the sexual assault and the attacker decided to kill him to cover up the crime, Singh said.Kumar, had been working at the school for eight months, and has been sent to a 3-day police custody. (Inputs from agencies)
