CBSE Pins Pradyumn’s Death to Negligence, Ryan Denies Charge

The CBSE committee claimed there were “severe irregularities and security lapses” in Ryan International School.

Parents and alumni protest outside Ryan International School.

(Photo: The Quint)

The gruesome killing of a minor boy of Gurugram's Ryan International School took place due to the "negligence" of its administration as drivers, conductors were allowed to use washrooms meant only for kids and staff, CBSE has told the Supreme Court.

The CBSE also said that even the incident of death of the seven-year old boy was not reported to the police by the school authority and, in fact, the FIR was lodged by the parent of the child victim.

Pradyumn, a class II student of the high-profile school, was found dead with his throat slit by a sharp-edged weapon on the morning of 8 September. It was alleged that he was killed by 42-year-old bus conductor Ashok Kumar inside the toilet as the boy resisted a bid to sodomise him.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in its response to the plea filed by victim’s father in the apex court, submitted that after the brutal murder of Pradyumn, it had set up a fact-finding committee to probe the incident.

The committee found that there were "severe irregularities and security lapses" in the school premises, the Board has said, while replying in affirmative to the question whether the alleged incident had happened due to "any negligence of school authority".

However earlier in the day, the management of Ryan group had denied any delay in reporting the incident to police officials.

The Ryan management slammed the CBSE’s show-cause notice over security lapses in the school, saying it was ‘uncalled for’, as the ‘CBSE has failed to point out a single lacuna in the school security.’

According to Times of India, the response submitted by the school management to the CBSE last week also alleged that Pradyumn’s death was caused “due to the mental imbalance of a person and that the school cannot be made liable for the same”.

(With inputs from PTI)