Gaziabad- For a father who says he spent two decades serving the country in the Indian Air Force and fought in the Kargil war, the battle today is no longer at the border. It is being fought in police stations, government offices and on the streets of UP and Delhi.
Retired Air Force sergeant and government school teacher Khajan Singh has spent months seeking answers over the death of his son, Ayush Pratap Singh, an IIT aspirant who died in Ghaziabad on December 28, 2025.
What initially appeared to be a road accident has since become the subject of a criminal complaint and a prolonged dispute between the family and the police over how Ayush died.
Khajan Singh alleges that his son was deliberately killed and that the death was made to look like an accident. He has linked his suspicion to an earlier dispute with people associated with a government school in Bulandshahr, where he was working as a teacher.
The murder allegation, however, has not been established by a police investigation or court. The FIR registered by Nandgram police in June 2026 was under provisions relating to rash/negligent driving and death by negligence, rather than murder. One of the most significant issues raised by the family is the delay in registration of the FIR.
The FIR registered after approximately six months named seven people, including government school headmaster Jaiprakash Sharma, his son Vaibhav Sharma and Shiksha Mitra Nirmal Devi, among others. The report said the family accused them of conspiring to kill Ayush.
Khajan Singh, however, has subsequently spoken publicly of eight accused. The case has now acquired a wider public dimension after Azad Samaj Party president and Nagina MP Chandra Shekhar Aazad raised the matter publicly and demanded an impartial investigation.
Ayush Pratap Singh was preparing for the IIT entrance examination and lived with his family in the Karhera area of Ghaziabad. According to reports, he had completed Class 12 from a Kendriya Vidyalaya associated with an Air Force station and was preparing for the entrance examination at home.
On December 28, 2025, Ayush left home on his motorcycle. His father says he had gone only a short distance to buy curd.
Within a short time, however, the family received news that Ayush had met with an accident.
According to Khajan Singh's account, when his wife called Ayush's phone, an unidentified person answered and told her that her son was lying dead near the Nandgram canal/Hindon River area.
The family reached the spot and later the mortuary. At that stage, the incident was treated as a road accident.
But Khajan Singh says that after examining what he describes as CCTV footage, witness accounts and other material, he began to question whether the accident theory could explain all the circumstances surrounding his son's death.
One of the central arguments raised by Khajan Singh concerns the injuries suffered by Ayush and the condition of his motorcycle and helmet.
In his public statements, Khajan Singh has repeatedly claimed that Ayush was wearing a helmet but that the helmet did not have corresponding damage or scratches. He has also claimed that the motorcycle did not bear the kind of damage he would expect from a serious collision.
He further alleges that Ayush suffered severe injuries to the head and face.
These claims are being presented by the family as reasons to investigate the possibility of an assault. They are not, by themselves, a judicial finding that the death was a homicide.
Khajan Singh also refers to statements allegedly given by three people to the police, according to which two men on motorcycles came from behind and struck Ayush.
The evidentiary value of these accounts, CCTV footage, medical evidence, vehicle examination and other material would have to be determined by the investigating agency.
The second major part of the family's allegation concerns Khajan Singh's work as a teacher.
According to media reports, Khajan Singh worked at a government school in the Bulandshahr district and had raised concerns about approximately ₹6 lakh described by him as conversion/meal-related money that he believed should have been distributed to students' accounts. Reports have described the dispute as being connected with mid-day-meal funds.
Khajan Singh says he raised the issue in a parents' meeting.
He alleges that this angered the then headmaster and other people associated with the school.
According to the account reported in June, the headmaster was subsequently transferred to another village after the matter reached the Basic Education Department. Khajan Singh believes that the dispute created hostility towards him.
He now alleges that this hostility ultimately had a connection with his son's death. That allegation remains to be investigated and established.
During the Delhi's Jantar Mantar protest, Khajan Singh described the emotional contradiction at the heart of his struggle.
He repeatedly identified himself as a retired Air Force serviceman and said he had served the country for two decades. He also described himself as a Kargil veteran, saying that he had fought during the Kargil conflict.
His larger point is clear: after spending his working life in uniform, he says he now finds himself repeatedly approaching the same state institutions for help after the death of his son. He said he was not seeking sympathy but wanted an investigation that could establish what actually happened to Ayush.
Khajan Singh says he has personally collected and preserved material that he believes establishes a connection between the alleged conspirators and his son's death.
Among the material he has referred to are:
CCTV footage from different points on Ayush's route;
call records and telephone numbers;
alleged links between people he suspects and the school headmaster;
statements attributed to eyewitnesses;
the condition of Ayush's helmet;
the condition of the motorcycle;
post-mortem findings;
and information about individuals allegedly connected with sewer-line work in the Ghaziabad area.
He claims that one person associated with sewer-line work had earlier carried out work in the village connected with the school headmaster and that he subsequently saw the same person in Ghaziabad.
Khajan Singh believes this establishes a link between the school dispute and people present in Ghaziabad.
The publicly reported police position has been materially different from Khajan Singh's theory. When the case was initially reported, police treated the death as a road accident. Published reports quoting the police said Ayush's death was initially considered to have resulted from a road accident and that there was no immediate indication of another vehicle being involved.
Khajan Singh says he has also approached political leaders and elected representatives after failing to obtain what he considers meaningful progress through the police system.
According to Singh, he met Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya, ministers Asim Arun and Baby Rani Maurya, Ghaziabad MP Atul Garg and local MLA Sanjeev Sharma, among others.
He alleges that despite these approaches, the investigation did not produce the action he expected.
He has also alleged that a relative of the school headmaster who is a Member of Parliament has been able to influence the police.
The case received renewed political attention on September 29 after Chandra Shekhar Aazad, national president of the Azad Samaj Party and MP from Nagina, raised the matter publicly.
Aazad's intervention focused on the delayed FIR, the family's allegation that the death was not an accident, the number of people named in the complaint and the absence of arrests.He questioned why, according to the family's account, the case had not progressed despite repeated representations.
He called for an impartial investigation and examination of the evidence.
Khajan Singh is now demanding that the Uttar Pradesh government transfer the matter for an independent investigation, specifically seeking a CBI or CID probe. He says he has approached not only the police but also the SC/ST Commission and the Human Rights Commission, and has retained copies of the complaints submitted to various authorities.
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