The Gurugram Police on Thursday served notices on owners of Ryan International Schools — Augustine Pinto and his wife Grace Pinto — asking them to join the investigation into the murder of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur on school campus on September 8.
The Pintos have been asked to share school records and documents under Section 91 of the CrPC. Also, they will be interrogated to ascertain sequence of events in the Ryan murder, said a police officer.
Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of three trustees of the Ryan International Group — CEO Ryan Pinto, his parents Augustine Pinto, the founding chairman, and Grace Pinto, the group’s managing director — but granted them interim protection from arrest till Friday to enable them file appeal. The HC asked them to submit their passports to the Mumbai Police.
On Sunday, the Gurugram Police had registered a case under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act against the school management and arrested two top officials Francis Thomas and Jayesh Thomas.
Besides school gardner Harpal Singh, the Special Investigation Team has questioned 17 people, including section in-charge Anju Dudeja, principal Neerja Batra, former principal Rakhi Verma, bus driver Saurabh Raghav, bus contractor Harkesh Pradhan and eight security guards.
An official involved in the probe said all suspects are on the radar and more arrests cannot be ruled out.
Meanwhile the SIT on Thursday took Francis, the regional head to different locations in Delhi to recover documents and papers needed to corroborate his statements.
During the interrogation, Francis and Jeyus the HR head reportedly accepted that there were a couple of loopholes related to safety and security of students. However, police have yet to recover some crucial documents and also clarify that how much Francis was part of the negligence.
“We have yet to recover some documents related to members of the school’s controlling trust, their roles and responsibilities. These documents could be recovered from the school’s Mumbai head office and could be in Francis custody,” the investigating officer said.
Also, the police team grilled school teachers on the school premises. Harpal the gardener of the school also joined the investigations. Officers said they were verifying the movements and role of Harpal as he has been changing his statements quite frequently.
“The SIT does not want to leave out a single piece of evidence which can be important and work as a key breakthrough for us to solve this case. With three days left for submission of charge sheet in court, we have got possible positive leads against the accused Ashok Kumar,” a senior SIT officer said
“The SIT has recovered a total 200 pages of correspondence from the Ryan headquarters in Mumbai, which includes the records of five page documents on safety of children, three pages on fire safety equipment, four pages on safety norms and 39 pages on road safety of the school,” he said.
Narayan, one of the school guards, gave details as per which the school hired eight guards, who worked in two shifts.”During the day, only four guards were present in the school to secure the safety of 1,200 students,” said Narayan, adding that three of the guards were deployed at the gate and the fourth at the entrance of main building.
The security and safety arrangements at the school have come under scanner following the incident. “We are also interrogating the security guards also,” the SIT officer said.
Commissioner of Gurugram Police, Sandeep Khirwar said, “The SIT has recorded the state statements of teachers, students, gardener and some other persons who were present in the vicinity of the crime spot. We have recreated the entire sequence that led to the murder of the child. Also crime scene is being scientifically examined. A parallel probe is also being carried out by the senior officials in this case and a collective exercise has been launched to build a strong case.”
“We have enough evidence which will prove that the Ashok was the prime accused behind the murder mystery. Every clue in the case has been taken by police. Also, police have ruled out the involvement of any other person the case,” the Commissioner said.