Ryan murder case: Gurugram district court grants bail to bus conductor Ashok Kumar

NEW DELHI: Ashok Kumar, the bus conductor falsely implicated by Haryana Police in the Pradyuman Thakur murder case, was granted bail by the Gurugram District Court on Tuesday.

According to ANI, the Gurugram District Court judge observed that the CBI did not submit any concrete evidence against the bus conductor in connection with 7-year-old child's murder. 

Court also exonerated Ashok, saying it's a matter of life and death so we allow the bail with a bond of Rs 50,000.

''The bail was granted under Article 21 of the Constitution. There were lot of differences between findings of CBI and the Haryana Police. We were given benefit of doubt,'' Anil Sharma, the lawyer of bus conductor Ashok said.

The court had on Monday reserved its order on bail plea of Ashok Kumar's plea for.

“The CBI has not been able to present any evidence against him. Also, DNA has not matched,” said Mohit Verma, Kumar's lawyer.

Kumar's family also welcomed the court's decision. 

We are really happy that Ashok has been granted bail: Accused bus conductor Ashok's father #PradyumanMurderCase pic.twitter.com/4aNIJud1tM — ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2017

Kumar was arrested in September in connection with the murder of Pradyuman Thakur, the seven-year-old student of Ryan International School Gurugram who was found with his throat slit near the washroom.

At the time, the state police had claimed to possess clinching evidence to connect the conductor with the crime, despite both his and victim's family expressing doubts over the it.

Later, the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

In a shocking move, the agency arrested a 16-year-old Class XI student of the same school for Pradyuman's murder earlier this month. 

Giving a clean chit to Kumar, the CBI further said that there's no evidence to show that the conductor is involved in the murder.

The Haryana Police later admitted to committing a mistake while accusing Ashok of the murder.

The team, which arrested the conductor and declared him a paedophile, confessed that they did not view the closed circuit television (CCTV) footage carefully.