Protest escalates even as Ryan owner is booked

Three days after a seven-year-old student was found with his throat slit at Ryan International School, the police booked the institute’s owner, Ryan Pinto, as protests against the murder and shoddy investigation escalated and turned violent on Sunday.  

Hundreds of protesters set ablaze a liquor shop near the school at Bhondsi near Gurugram, prompting the police to resort to lathiharge, in which many people, including journalists, were injured.

The police also detained several protesters. Parents have decided not to send their children to the school and called for a mass protest on Monday. The school has some 1,200 students enrolled.   

Haryana Education Minister Rambilas Sharma said that action under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act will also be taken against the school management. The police had on Friday arrested a bus conductor of the school after the Class II student was spotted outside a toilet, crawling and bleeding profusely before he died.

Protesters alleged that drivers and conductors of the school often had liquor from the shop and could use toilets meant for students. Locals said the school playground that has no boundary wall opens right in front of the liquor shop. This, they said, had made the playground a den of criminals.

The conductor, Ashok (42), who had been working for the school for the past eight months, first tried to sexually assault the child before mercilessly killing him when he resisted, the police had said.

The area turned near the school into a police garrison on Sunday as three bus-loads of cops were brought in and the school was fortified, with politicians pouring in to exploit the tragedy and angry parents pressing for a CBI probe. Officers justified the police action, saying the mob could have gone out of control.

“The case has been probed very shoddily. When we gathered here to demand justice for the family, the police thrashed us and even mediapersons,” said Subhash Kumar, a protester, who received injuries during the violent scuffle. Cameras of some journalists were also damaged.

Girdhar Pathak, another local who was hurt, said, “It was when MP Pappu Yadav arrived and began listening to protesters, police officers ordered lathicharge. We were demanding cancellation of the school’s licence. Even those who got into their houses were dragged out and beaten up mercilessly.”

Congress leader and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda visited the victim’s parents. He condemned the police action in the BJP-ruled state and backed the family’s demand for a CBI probe. Congress leader Randeep Surjewala sought an apology from Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

The victim’s father, Varun Kumar Thakur, said that the sequence of the crime remains unclear. “There are many questions which the police needs to answer. We doubt that the conductor was alone responsible for the crime. We must get justice. This shall not be left as one of the high-profile unsolved cases,” said Thakur who works as a quality manager for a private company in Delhi.

The acting principal of the school, Neerja Batra, has already been suspended. The services of a private agency that provided security to the school have also been suspended.

Even on Friday, the brutal murder had sparked angry protests by the victim’s father, other guardians and locals who shouted slogans and vandalised school property, flinging furniture around and shattering glass doors. The police had to resort to lathicharge even then to control the mob fury and arrested five protesters who were later let off.