Gurugram School Murder: Court rejects plea of accused in murder of 7-year-old schoolmate

GURUGRAM: A sessions court here on Tuesday rejected a plea against the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) order to try a youth, who was 16 years old when he was accused of killing his seven-year-old schoolmate here in September 2017, as an adult.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Tarun Singal rejected the appeal of the accused. The court fixed the next hearing on December 22. The appeal was filed on November 16 and the session court issued a notice to the CBI which submitted its reply. Sticking to its earlier ruling, the JJB had in October ordered that the youth shall be tried as an adult.

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The Supreme Court had in July this year upheld the October 11, 2018 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the juvenile be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or not for the crime that occurred at a private school in Gurugram. The JJB had earlier directed that the juvenile should be tried as an adult.

While the sessions court upheld the order in May 2018, the high court set it aside after which the victim’s father approached the apex court. The CBI had taken up the case from the district police on September 22, 2017, following a massive uproar over the gruesome killing. The agency, in a charge sheet, had alleged that the accused, a Class 11 student at that time, had murdered the child in a bid to get the examinations postponed and a scheduled parent-teacher meeting cancelled.

The victim’s body, with the throat slit, was found in the school toilet in the Bhondsi area here. The counsel for the accused had challenged the JJB’s earlier order in the sessions court, saying it was “bad in law” and passed without giving him a proper opportunity to present his case. The court had barred the media from using the name of the juvenile accused in the case and asked it to use fictitious names instead.

While the seven-year-old victim was referred to as “Prince” by the court, the juvenile accused was called “Bholu” and the school was referred to as “Vidyalaya”. The probe agency had earlier given a clean chit to school bus conductor Ashok Kumar, who was arrested by the Gurugram Police, saying there was no evidence to prove his involvement in the crime. PTI CORR RT RT