Gurugram Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar on Thursday told journalists that his officers had never declared bus conductor Ashok Kumar the culprit behind the murder of a Class 2 student in the city’s Ryan International School in September.

“It was our earnest intention to solve the case as soon as possible, and we conducted the investigation based on the physical evidence we had at hand,” Khirwar said, denying that the police had claimed Kumar had tried to sexually assault the eight-year-old. He also pointed out that they had not filed a chargesheet against the bus conductor.

The Gurugram Police was criticised by the child’s family after they arrested Kumar within 12 hours of the incident. The family had maintained that the botched up investigation was an attempt to shield someone influential. The bus conductor’s family had also alleged that the police had forced Kumar to confess to the crime.

The police commissioner’s statement comes a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case from the police, arrested a Class 11 student of the same school for murdering the child allegedly to postpone exams scheduled for the same day as well as a parent-teacher meeting.

The CBI now plans to recreate the scene of the murder with the help of the juvenile. On Thursday, the CBI said the Class 11 student had admitted to murdering the eight-year-old.