The father of the murdered Class 2 Ryan International School student has claimed that a Haryana Cabinet minister asked the family to not ask for the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the case, IANS reported.

The father said Rao Narbir Singh, who is the public works department and forest and civil aviation minister, visited the family a day before Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced that the CBI would investigate the murder. “He told us the CBI was just a big name and nothing more,” he told IANS.

“Singh told us the agency already had a lot of work and will not be able to investigate the case even in a year,” the father claimed, adding that the minister tried to convince the family that the Haryana Police was a better agency than the CBI.

The minister has denied the father’s claims, according to The Tribune. “I am shocked how some people are using an aggrieved father to train guns at me,” he told the newspaper, adding that he, too, had spoken to the chief minister and asked for a CBI inquiry.

“I told the father that it was only three days since the police began investigating the murder, and so it was too early to lose trust in them,” he said. “I asked him to wait, but when he said he wanted a CBI inquiry, I ensured his demand was fulfilled.”

The Class 2 student was found with his throat slit inside one of the washrooms of the Gurugram school on September 8. The CBI arrested a 16-year-old student of the same school on November 7 for the murder. He is believed to have killed the boy as he wanted a parent-teacher meeting and an examination postponed.