Guilty

Copyright © 2012 Firstpost

Table of contents

The VerdictAarushi murder case: Rajesh, Nupur found guilty, sentencing Tuesday 04

The contentious CBI report

CBI’s closure report: Does it hide more than it reveals? 08

Why did CBI discard crucial evidence in Aarushi case? 10

Is the final CBI case on Aarushi too reliant on speculation? 14

The Nupur Talwar saga

Why did Nupur Talwar run? 18

What next for Nupur Talwar? 19

Nupur takes to teaching women inmates at Dasna jail 20

Nupur Talwar wants to write book on daughter’s murder 21

Nupur Talwar to leave jail on 25 Sep after receiving bail 22

‘Don’t know what Nupur Talwar’s mental state is after jail’ 23

How the trial progressed

Talwars charged with murder, destruction of evidence 25

Talwars’ indifference was shocking on fateful day: Witness 26

Aarushi muder case: Contradictions in doc’s statements, autopsy report 27

‘Was under pressure to hide rape angle in Aarushi’s postmortem’ 28

My statement was dictated by the CBI: Aarushi case witness 30

Neighbour says on day of Aarushi murder, Talwars had taken his terrace key 31

Forensic experts never saw murder weapon, says defence 33

The problems with the CBI case

Aarushi murder: The curious case of the ‘missing’ golf club 36

Why wasn’t LCN testing used in Aarushi-Hemraj investigation? 38

Aarushi- Hemraj trial: more holes in prosecution’s case 40

Servants admitted to killing Aarushi, Hemraj: CBI inspector 42

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Aarushi-Hemraj murders: Key elements that will decide the verdict 44

Aarushi-Hemraj trial: CBI focusses on ‘conduct’ of Talwars as key evidence 47

Aarushi-Hemraj trial: CBI’s unending quest for the murder weapon 49

What the CBI told court

CBI tells court Talwars killed Aarushi, Hemraj 51

Talwars found Aarushi, Hemraj in compromising position: CBI 52

No one except her parents could have killed Aarushi: CBI 54

‘Rajesh Talwar found Aarushi, Hemraj in objectionable position, killed them’ 55

What the Talwars told courtWas asleep when Aarushi, Hemraj were murdered: Rajesh Talwar tells court 58

Even if I am acquitted, my fight for justice will continue: Rajesh Talwar 59

Aarushi-Hemraj case: ‘Talwars battled with their hands tied’ 60

Aarushi-Hemraj murder case: Talwars say CBI tampered with evidence 62

Support for the TalwarsImages: 4 years since Aarushi Talwar’s death, no headway yet 64

The Aarushi Talwar case: The insider’s perspective 65

‘Talwars living in a bubble of sorrow’ 66

Aarushi murder case: Friends create website supporting Talwars 67

Talwars find online support, a new campaign appeals to CBI’s parent ministry 69

The social questionsBeware the middle class murderer: Why we suspect the Talwars 72

Nupur Talwar and stereotypes we hold of a mother 75

Prosecution to Talwars: Confess your inner khap panchayat 77

Convicting the Talwars: Middle class murderers like us 79



Aarushi murder case: Rajesh, Nupur found guilty, sentencing Tuesday

Almost five-and-a-half years after the sensational murder of teenager Aarushi Talwar and domestic help

Hemraj, a special CBI court on Monday ruled that

FP Staff, Nov 25, 2012

A lmost five-and-a-half years after the sensational murder of teenager Aarushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj, a

special CBI court on Monday ruled that Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were guilty of murdering their daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj.

The sentencing in the case will be pronounced on Tuesday. Nupur Talwar has been found guilty under sections 34, 302, 201 of IPC, while Rajesh has been found guilty under sections 34, 302, 201, 203 of IPC.

Special Judge S Lal, who is to retire soon, pro-nounced the verdict following a 15-month-long trial of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, both of whom have now been taken into cus-tody.

Aarushi and Hemraj were found murdered on the intervening night of 15 -16 May 2008 at their Jalvayu Vihar residence in Noida.

The case has been under intense media glare ever since the murder was first revealed, and in August 2009 the Supreme Court restrained the media from sensational or scandalous reporting of the matter even as the Talwars accused the CBI of changing the course of the investigation

and of purportedly releasing leaks that were "damaging" to their reputation.

The Uttar Pradesh Police started its probe on the premise that Hemraj had killed Aarushi and escaped from the crime scene. But following the discovery of Hemraj's body on the terrace of the Talwars' flat the next day, Rajesh Talwar was taken into custody by the UP Police.

The sensational allegations made by the UP Police that the killer was none other than the teenager's father, acting in rage after finding Aarushi and Hemraj in an "objectionable but not compromising" position accentuated media attention.

Amid growing media scrutiny, then UP Chief Minister Mayawati handed over the case to CBI.

A CBI team under Joint Director Arun Kumar first concluded that murders were committed by Krishna Thadarai- who worked as a help at Tal-war's clinic, his friend Rajkumar-- a domestic servant with Praful and Anita Durrani who were friends of the Talwars, and Vijay Mandal, who worked as a driver for the Talwar's neighbour.

These findings were subsequently trashed by then CBI Director Ashwani Kumar who poked

The Verdict



holes in the theory by underlining loopholes in the arguments given by Arun Kumar. On 25 January 2011, Rajesh was attacked by a youth with a meat cleaver on the Ghaziabad court premises.

The Talwars had subsequently moved the Alla-habad High Court, which dismissed their pleas to quash the trial court summons and the pro-ceedings initiated against them.

The couple then approached the apex court but were again denied relief.

The trial in the sensational murders started on 11 June, 2012. The case went on for nearly one

and a half years, during which the prosecution led by CBI's Deputy Legal Advisor RK Saini pre-sented 39 witnesses to buttress their case while the defence team presented seven witnesses.

The action in court at times had shades of a Bollywood drama, when the defence lawyer performed a demonstration of an attack with a golf club, by smashing a motorbike helmet and attempted to prove that there was no way the dentist couple would have been able to drag Hemraj's body to the terrace, by dragging a man in a bed sheet before the judge.

The prosecution started its final arguments on 10 October, summing up their case against Rajesh and Nupur running into nearly seven days while the defence started its arguments on 24 October and completed it on 12 November.

The CBI pressed the theory that during the night of murders there was no evidence of any forced entry, and of the four people in the

house--Aarushi, Hemraj, Rajesh and Nupur--only two were alive, and hence the circumstan-tial evidence pointed towards the dentist cou-ple's involvement.

Saini strongly put forward circumstantial evidence--no outsider entry, last scene theory, dressing of crime scene, destruction of evidence, tampering with Aarushi's body and cover up of Hemraj's body with a cooler panel on the terrace--which, he claimed, all pointed to the Talwars guilt.

"Sudden and grave provocation theory, as pre-sented by the defence, is not our theory," Saini said, adding that Rajesh Talwar had entered Aarushi's room armed with a golf club, with the intention of committing a crime.

"Talwars tried to mislead this court by creating the sudden and grave provocation theory at the final stage of this case," Saini had told the court.Quoting from a statement by the Talwars former maid Bharti, he argued that when the maid reached for work on the morning of 16 May 2008, the outermost door had been locked from the "inside" which proved that outsiders could not be involved in the crime.

Defence lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir countered this by saying that the latch of the Talwar's iron gate was locked from "outside" and not from inside, and added that the Hemraj's room was located in a way that made it possible for an outsider to enter the house.

During final arguments, Saini told the court that the doctors who conducted the post mortems on both victims had made statements to the effect that the injuries visible on Aarushi's forehead and Hemraj's head could have been made with a golf club.

Refuting the claims, Mir said if the CBI case was to be believed, then Hemraj's injuries would have resulted in a pool of blood which was not visible at the crime scene.

"...but in this case no blood, no DNA, no biologi-cal fluid and no finger prints which belonged to Hemraj were found in the Aarushi's room and it suggests that Hemraj was not murdered in Aarushi's room," Mir had told the court.



The defence also claimed that the injuries in-flicted with a golf club would have resulted in a "depressed fracture" whereas Aarushi's post-mortem reports show a line fracture.

The CBI suffered a major setback when the Tal-war's former domestic maid said her testimony had been coached. The defence also alleged that CBI mishandled evidence of 12 golf clubs and a golf club bag.

The prosecution also said that Aarushi and Hemraj's DNA had been found on a bottle of Ballantine's scotch seized by the Noida police on the morning of May 16, 2008.

"This indicates the involvement of the dentist couple in the murder. Suppose, if the killers were outsiders, they would not have the guts to consume whisky from the bottle after murder-ing Aarushi and Hemraj. As per the CBI's the-ory, Rajesh Talwar had consumed whisky from his Ballantine's scotch bottle during murders with small gaps," Saini had argued.

Arguing against this piece of evidence, Mir said when the bottle of scotch was sent for forensic examination, forensic expert AD Shah found five finger prints from the bottle, none of which belonged to the dentist couple.

"Besides, 24 chance prints were also taken from different places like the TV remote, walls, and Aarushi's bedsheet, but no blood or DNA be-longing to Hemraj was found from the Talwars' residence," he argued.

Saini in his concluding arguments had said that the CBI had proved charges of murder with common intention and destruction of evidence. On the other hand, Talwars' lawyer Mir had said that their arguments prove that Talwars have not committed crime.

With PTI inputs



The contentious CBI report



CBI’s closure report: Does it hide more than it reveals?

The CBI’s closure report leaves many unanswered questions about the manner in which the investigation

of the double murder was conducted.

Pallavi Polanki, Jan 7, 2012

I n December 2010, the Central Bureau of Investigation took everyone by surprise when it decided to close the ‘sensational’

Aarushi-Hemraj murder case, concluding that “there are a number of critical and serious gaps in the circumstances which make it difficult to string together the sequence of events and mo-tive behind the gruesome murder.”

The closure report by the CBI further added that “sufficient evidence is not available to prove the offence under section 302/201 IPC against accused Dr Rajesh Talwar beyond reasonable doubt.”

(Section 302 in the Indian Penal Code is pun-ishment for murder and Section 201 is causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender.)

The CBI makes no bones about holding the first responders - in this case the Uttar Pradesh Police - responsible for botching up the investi-gation.

“The investigating team was handicapped by the inability of the first responders to examine the scene of crime properly and collect all possible evidences which could be available to the first responder,” states the report.

And thus, in the absence of any incriminat-ing evidence, the CBI chose to rely entirely on circumstantial evidence, provided no motive but piggybacked on the UP police’s unsubstantiated suspicion of the father having found his daugh-ter in “a compromising position with Hemraj” which they claimed mounted to ‘grave and sud-den provocation” of the crime.



The most disturbing aspect of the entire inves-tigation remains the utter incompetence with which the UP police handled the case, only feed-ing the imagination of bizarre conspiracy theo-rists while not taking any responsibility for their own goof-ups.

Let’s just consider one of the many examples of the blunders the UP police committed on arriv-ing at the crime scene.

On the morning that Aarushi’s body was found, friends of Rajesh Talwar – and not the police who had arrived at the crime scene - “stumbled upon some blood stains on the handle of terrace door which was locked.”

Confronted with blood trail that was begging to be followed, this is what the police did. “Police officers also went and saw the blood stains and directed the IO (investigating officer) to get it opened hut (but) police failed to open it on the 16/05/2008.” Ah well. They tried.

The UP police, for reasons only they know, de-cided to leave a crucial clue unattended to for an entire day.

Not even on the next day does the UP police think it necessary to follow this blood trail.

Strangely, it is a retired police officer who ar-rives at the Talwar’s residence the next day who specifically directs the police to get the terrace door opened.

“He (reference here to KK Gautam, described in the report as a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police) telephonically contacted local police officers. After a few minutes, police reached the terrace and asked for the keys to the lock. They were told that the keys were not available. The lock of the door was then broken.”

What kind of a police force waits 24 hours to open a blood-stained door that is screaming to be unlocked at crime-scene where a teenager has been brutally murdered.

One more question.

Among the many items that were seized from the house of the Talwars that morning was a

blood-stained scotch bottle. The closure report makes an apologetic disclosure about where that led to. “There is no evidence to explain the finger prints on the scotch bottle (which was found along with blood stains of both the vic-tims on the bottle). As per the police diary, it was taken into possession on the morning itself. In spite of best efforts, the fingerprint could not be identified.”

And whose fault is that?

Sixteen crucial days after 14-year-old Aarushi was found dead in her house in Noida, the CBI took over the case of her murder and that of do-mestic help Hemraj, whose body was found the next day (17 May, 2008) on the terrace of house.

The country’s premier investigating agency after one-and-a-half years of intense investigation that included everything from labs tests to brain fingerprinting test - drew a blank and happily laid the blame at the door of the UP police.

Who will take responsibility for incompetent investigation?

The submission of the closure report by the CBI has been described by some observers as a masterstroke. Not wanting to take any chances, the agency only pointed fingers at the Talwars because they didn’t have any evidence to back their theory.

It may be recalled that in the closure report the CBI makes a U-turn from its submission in July 2008. In no uncertain words the CBI had said that the “scientific examination of the results could not connect accused Rajesh Talwar with the crime” and that “in the interest of justice” custody of Rajesh Talwar was not required.

The CBI’s closure report leaves many unan-swered questions about the manner in which the investigation of the double murder was conducted.

That should worry us all.

Firstpost brings to its readers the CBI’s report on why it wanted to close the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/77442146/CBI


Why did CBI discard crucial evidence in Aarushi case?

From suspects to murder weapons to the manner of death, the CBI inquiries into the Aarushi murder case have been fraught with contradictions. Firstpost looks at how the CBI dismissed a crucial piece of physical

evidence for reasons not fully explained.

Pallavi Polanki Jan 17, 2012

N ew Delhi: Few cases have ever wit-nessed the kind of mass hysteria gener-ated by the Aarushi-Hemraj murder

case from the moment it broke on the front pages of newspapers on a hot summer morning in May 2008.

Almost four years later, Rajesh and Nupur Tal-war will appear before a trial court on 4 Febru-ary in Uttar Pradesh, after the Supreme Court earlier this month refused to quash the lower court’s order to put the couple on trial for the two murders.

In 2008, on the intervening night of 15 - 16 May, between 12 midnight and 1 am, 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and 45-year-old Nepali domestic help Hemraj were brutally murdered in the apartment of the dentist couple in Noida.

And since, the case has seen as many twists as the investigating officers who have handled it – first the Uttar Pradesh Police, then a CBI team headed by Arun Kumar, followed by a second CBI team who infamously submitted a Closure Report in December 2010. (Read more).

Consider the series of ‘suspects’. First, there was Hemraj (suspected of killing Aarushi until his body was found on the terrace the next day). Next it was Rajesh Talwar, and third, the three servants who were known to the Talwars and Hemraj: Krishna Thadarai (Rajesh’s compound-er), Raj Kumar (domestic help of the neigh-bours) and Vijay Mandal (who also worked in the neighborhood). Finally, now, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar.

Then consider the series of ‘murder weapons’ . First it was a Khukri. Then it was a combina-tion of weapons – a surgical instrument plus a blunt object, and finally a golf stick has been identified as the weapon that inflicted the death blows.

And there is the ‘sequence of murder’ series. The initial claim was that Hemraj was murdered in Aarushi’s room in a fit of rage by Rajesh and then dragged and dumped on the terrace. But then the CBI in its closure report tells the court, “There is no evidence to prove that Hemraj was killed in the room of Aarushi.”

The CBI is now back to its first theory. A re-port published earlier this month in the Times of India, quotes the CBI as saying “Dr Rajesh Talwar started hitting with the golf club with the intention to kill Hemraj. The first blow landed on the back side of the head of Hemraj since that side was top most. On getting hit once or twice, Hemraj collapsed and fell down. Shifting of the position of the head of Hemraj resulted in


http://www.firstpost.com/india/cbis-closure-report-does-it-hide-more-than-it-reveals-175127.html


the blows of golf club landing on the forehead of Aarushi. This resulted in frontal injuries to Aarushi.”

Firstpost examines one of the many contradic-tions in the CBI’s investigation of the Aarushi-Hemraj case, based entirely on the CBI’s own reports, and applications submitted to the special CBI court during the course of the in-vestigation. In this story, we examine the CBI’s dismissal of a crucial piece of physical evidence; one that confirms the presence of the blood of one of the victims on the pillow covers of one of the earlier suspects in the case.

Closure Report: “No outsiders were in-volved”

On 13 June 2008, barely two weeks after the CBI took over the investigation of the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case from the Uttar Pradesh police, Krishna Thadarai - Rajesh’s compounder who assisted him in his dental clinic – was arrested and subsequently remanded in CBI police custody.

Ten days later, on June 23, the CBI moved an application in the special CBI court in Ghaz-iabad for an extension of Krishna’s custody in which it makes quite a compelling case for not releasing him.

“..during the investigation accused Krishna Thadarai was subjected to polygraph test in the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, New Delhi, repeated polygraph, brain mapping and narco analysis test in the Forensic Science Labo-ratory, Bangalore, and Psychological Assess-ment Test by the experts from forensic medicine to verify the veracity of his statement. "Some of the reports have been received which establish that the accused Krishna Thadarai is not truth-ful in his answers relating to his involvement in the commission of the murder of Aarushi and Hemraj. That accused though admitted to his involvement in the crime along with others is not cooperating in the investigation and mis-leading the investigating officers with regard to the recovery of various articles related with the crime, which are essentially required to be recovered....That the investigation is continuing and the facts revealed by the accused are being verified and in the interest of justice and on-

going investigation, further sustained custodial interrogation of accused is essentially required for recovery of weapon of offence, blood stained cloths, mobile phones of victims....It is a blind murder case and investigation is going on sci-entific lines, hence further extension of police remand of accused Krishna Thadarai is neces-sary.”

About a month later - on 27 July - Krishna is still in custody and the CBI dismisses Krishna’s complaint that he is being wrongfully detained and subjected to scientific tests without his consent.

Describing Krishna’s complaint as “false, frivo-lous, baseless and concocted to create a false ali-bi to deflect the blame from himself during the trial before the court”, the CBI in its reply tells the court that “the accused is very much con-cerned with the household of Dr Talwar, being his employer, and frequently visited his house including the day when Aarushi and Hemraj were murdered.” (emphasis added)

The CBI further tells the court that “the accused is actively involved in the commission of the crime as established by the scientific tests con-ducted on him” and that he was arrested “only after getting sufficient material against him of his involvement in the conspiracy and murder of Aarushi and Hemraj”.

Cut to December 2010. While admitting in its closure report that “Krishna and Raj Kumar were Nepalis known to Hemraj and had access to the home of Dr Rajesh Talwar”, the CBI says it has “conclusively established that the servants could not have committed the crime...”

Contradicting its earlier observation of Krish-na’s familiarity with the Talwar household, the CBI argues that “servants would not have had the guts to assemble in the house of Dr Tal-war when both the doctors were present in the house.”

‘Except the narco test, which is not reliable’ there is no evidence against the servants accord-ing to the CBI. It is worth mentioning here, in Rajesh and Nupur’s case, that the CBI did not even find evidence in the narco test. So much so, it admitted that one of shortcomings in the



evidence, was that “scientific tests on Dr Rajesh Talwar and Dr Nupur Talwar have not conclu-sively indicated their involvement in the crime.”

The real shocker, however, is the CBI’s dismiss-al of a crucial piece of physical evidence; one that confirms the presence of the blood of one of the victims on the pillow covers of one of the earlier suspects.

This piece of evidence, submitted by the CBI along with its closure report to the court, myste-riously finds no mention in the report itself.

A short recap. On the morning of 14 June 2008, about a month after the murders, a CBI team accompanied by experts from the Central Fo-rensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) arrived at Krishna’s residence and took possession of some of his personal belongings. Among items seized was a purple pillow-cover that was used by him.

In its ‘inspection-cum-seizure’ memo, the inves-tigating team recorded that “some spots have been found on a pillow-cover and clothes of Krishna which are suspicious and require to be examined by experts in the lab.”

The CFSL report, submitted two weeks later, confirmed that the spots on the pillow-cover were indeed blood.

Subsequently, the Centre for DNA Fingerprint-ing and Diagnostics (CDFD) was asked by the CBI to identify and match the DNA samples collected from the crime scene with those of the suspects, including samples from Rajesh and Nupur.

The blood-stained purple-coloured pillow re-covered from Krishna’s residence was also sent.

The CDFD report dated 6 November 2008, showed that the DNA profiles of samples ex-tracted from the blood-stains on Krishna’s pillow-cover, a bloodstained palm-print on the terrace wall of the Talwar residence and the blood-stained scotch bottle found on the dining table were identical.

The DNA profile, in turn, matched with the DNA profile of samples taken from Hemraj’s

personal belongings - two razors and a broken comb. Thus confirming that the blood on Krish-na’s pillow cover was that of Hemraj.

Quoting from the CDFD report: “The DNA profiles of the sources of exhibit W (DNA sam-ple said to be extracted from the bloodstained palm print found on the wall of the roof/terrace, marked as 24), exhibit X (DNA sample said to be extracted from the exhibit 6d bottle) and exhibit Z20 (one pillow cover, purple-coloured cloth) are of male origin and identical.

It adds that “The DNA profiles of the sources of exhibit W, exhibit X and exhibit Z20 are not matching with the DNA profiles of the sources of the exhibit H (blood samples said to be of Mr Krishna Thadarai)....”

Thus implying that the blood found on the blood-stained palm print, the scotch bottle and the purple-coloured pillow, while being ‘of male-origin and identical’ did not belong to Krishna.

In its conclusion the CDFD report states, “The DNA profile from the source of the exhibit W, (DNA sample said to be extracted from the blood-stained palm print found on the wall of the roof/terrace, marked 24), exhibit X (DNA sample said to be extracted from exhibit 6d bot-tle), exhibit U (broken hair comb, article said to be of Mr Hemraj), exhibit R (two razors, articles said to be of Mr Hemraj), Z20 (one pillow-cov-er, purple coloured cloth) and exhibit Z30 (one bed cover (multi-coloured) with suspected spots of blood) are from the same male individual distinct from and unrelated to the sources of exhibit H (Mr Krishna Thadarai) exhibit I (Mr



Rajkumar) and exhibit J (Dr Rajesh Talwar) and exhibit Z26 (Mr Vijay Mandal).”

In other words, the DNA profile of samples extracted from the bloodstained handprint on the wall, the scotch bottle, the purple-coloured pillow-cover were identical and matched with DNA profile of samples extracted from Hemraj’s personal belongings.

Having either ignored or missed a crucial lead nothing short of a breakthrough in the case, the CBI on being confronted with it, shockingly dismissed it as a “typographical error on the

part of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnositcs.”

Why then was an erroneous report submitted to the court? Has anybody been held accountable for this astonishing level of incompetence?

And so, just like that, the country’s premier investigating agency dismissed a crucial piece of evidence which its own investigation had re-vealed. Tellingly, it was a piece of evidence that questioned the very basis of the CBI’s closure report and could have hugely embarrassed the agency.



Is the final CBI case on Aarushi too reliant on speculation?

The second (and final) medical report into the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case, uses circumstantial evidence to disregard the findings of a 7-member medical team in

the immediate aftermath of the murder.


Editor's note: Firstpost is running a series on the bizarre contradictions in official investiga-tions into the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case that has gripped the nation since 2008. The contradictions we highlight are based entirely on the CBI’s own reports, and applica-tions submitted to the special CBI court during the course of the investigation. Today we look at how the second CBI crime scene report uses circumstantial evidence to disregard the find-ings of a 7-member medical team in the imme-diate aftermath of the murder . Read the first story in the series here.

O n 9 September 2008, about three-and-a-half months after 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and 45-year-old domestic help

Hemraj Banjade were murdered at the Talwar residence in Noida, a seven-member board set up by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) submitted its report on the murder case to the CBI.

The board, which included experts on forensic medicine drawn from AIIMS and the CBI, gave its expert opinion on a series of crucial ques-tions posed by the investigating agency relating to the cause of murder, and recreating what could have taken place at the scene.

According to the findings of the board, the as-sailant may have first killed Hemraj and then come down to kill Aarushi.

It also opined that the injuries to both victims seemed to have been caused by both a sharp-edged weapon and a blunt weapon, thus giv-ing credence to the theory that they could have been inflicted by a heavy weapon like the khukri which has both a sharp and blunt edge.

It further said that the blood splatters on the wall in Aarushi’s bedroom and the wall of the terrace, where Hemraj’s body was found, could have been “either due to spurting of blood on cutting of a major artery or from the weapon already soaked with blood while in movement for a blow.”

Further observations made on the basis of the pathology report of the vaginal smear of the vic-tim, her post-mortem report, and photographs of the scene of crime,concluded that that there was no evidence to prove sexual assault.

Interestingly, each one of the above conclusions were contradicted or overruled by a fresh crime scene analysis that was sought by the second CBI team led by Neelabh Kishore which took over the investigation in September 2009.

Titled ‘Crime-Scene Analysis (CSA) based on photographs of the scene of crime, post-mor-tem reports and other records of the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case’, the report by a one-man team from the Gandhinagar-based Directorate


http://www.firstpost.com/breaking-views/why-did-cbi-discard-crucial-evidence-in-aarushi-case-184640.html


of Forensic Science contradicted the findings of the AIIMS report. Furthermore, it revived the Uttar Pradesh police’s (who were the first to investigate the case) explanation of motive – on which now rests the CBI’s case against the Tal-wars. That being: the murders were committed due to grave and sudden provocation on find-ing Aarushi in “a compromising position with Hemraj.”

The author places on record his reliance on circumstantial evidence given the absence of material proof at his disposal. “At the outset, it may be pointed out that the available record (in the form of photographs, CDs, post-mortem re-ports) cannot be a perfect substitute for the real site visit immediately after the crime...to over-come this difficulty, reliance has to be placed on circumstantial evidence as well.”

Taking on the seven-member AIIMS board head-on, he observes: “It has been attempted to be projected that Hemraj was assaulted and killed on the rooftop of the flat of the Talwars. The presence of the blood of Hemraj on the pil-low in the bedroom of Aarushi, however, ne-gates that plea conclusively.”

But most interesting, is the fact that he then goes on to contradict the CBI’s own admission made previously to the AIIMS board, by saying, “there is no impact splatter (of blood) anywhere on the roof-top (terrace or walls) corresponding to the head injuries sustained by Hemraj.”

But one of the questions by the CBI to the origi-nal AIIMS board was “Do the blood splatters found at the scene of the crime on the terrace where the body of the Hemraj was found, in-dicate any clues like for instance, the manner in which he was struck, the number of persons that attacked him, the probable time of first at-tack etc?”.

What explains this contradiction? Either the author missed the blood splatters in the photo-graphs of the crime-scene provided by the CBI, or the CBI did not provide all the photographs of the crime scene to the forensic expert.

The author then, hard-pressed for material evidence, draws heavily on circumstantial evi-dence to recreate his own version of what hap-

pened that night: “It appears that someone very desperate to somehow avoid linking the two murders has to be behind this move (of conceal-ing Hemraj’s body). Another possibility is that a plan of secret disposal of the dead body of Hemraj at a subsequent point of time and shift-ing of suspicion of Aarushi’s murder on Hemraj could be the objective behind this manipulation. Since Hemraj– a Gurkha, could be expected to have used a ‘khukri’ for perpetuating Aarushi’s murder, the slitting of throat of Aarushi and concealing of Hemraj’s dead body may have been planned by someone who happened to lose control over his anger after he found Aarushi and Hemraj together in the former’s bedroom at the dead of night….both the deceased were probably part of some transaction that was enough provocation to enrage the assassin(s) to kill both of them with equal brutality.”

The author then goes on to contradict the AIIMS board assertion that there no record of any sexual activity or assault on Aarushi. He quotes the medical officer, who had conducted the post-mortem of the victim, as saying that “the hymen was ruptured and healed” and “her vaginal opening was found prominent.”

Nevermind that the post-mortem report by the same doctor dated May 16, 2008, makes no record of any sexual activity or assault. On what basis did the doctor contradict his own find-ings?

And finally, the murder weapon. The new report discards the khukri as a possible murder weapon.

“The triangular-shaped head injury suggests that the weapon of assault in all probability must have been a golf club...it can cause an in-jury that matches with the dimensions of inju-ries recorded in the present case.”

The author also tries to explain the fact that the throats of both victims were slit saying, “It may not be out of place to mention that the weapon used to cause neck injuries to the deceased was noticed to be a very sharp-edged weapon, and the ready availability of surgical equipment of that sharpness with the Talwars by virtue of their medical profession, is another circumstan-tial factor weighing against them..”



However there has been no mention or recovery or a specific description even of this mysteri-ous ‘surgical equipment’ that has been allegedly used in committing the crime to date.

The author also creates quite a detailed picture of how the assailants went about cleaning up the bloodstains in the house. “...the assassin(s) must have taken care to locate all such chance contacts with walls and other surfaces and to wipe them clean...the absence of blood stains inside the flat despite the assassin (s) having returned to the house after concealing the dead body of Hemraj on the rooftop, shows that they took full advantage of well-lit conditions inside the flat to carefully remove all chance prints."

But why after meticulously scrubbing the floor and walls and making their blood-soaked clothes miraculously disappear, did the assas-sins leave a blood-stained Ballantine scotch bottle lying on the dining table? Alas, the author makes no mention whatsoever of this screaming piece of evidence that was seized from the Tal-war residence on the morning of May 16, 2008.

For the record, the CBI’s record that is, there is no evidence to explain the fingerprints on the scotch bottle (containing the blood stains of both victims). “In spite of best efforts, the fin-gerprints could not be identified.”



The Nupur Talwar saga



Why did Nupur Talwar run?Speculation is now rife that the couple’s lawyers will

approach the Supreme Court in a bid to cancel the non bailable warrant against Nupur Talwar.

Pallavi Polanki Apr 12, 2012

N either the CBI nor her lawyers seem to know the whereabouts of Nupur Tal-war, on whom a lower court issued a

non-bailable warrant after she failed to appear before it on Wednesday.

With the ‘absconder’ tag only working against Nupur in the eyes of the law, questions are be-ing raised as to whether she should have been advised to skip court yesterday.

The fear of being taken into custody seems to have been the main reason behind her non-ap-pearance. The prospect became more likely af-ter the Allahabad High Court cancelled its last month’s order directing the special CBI court to expeditiously decide her bail application earlier this week.

In an application to the special CBI court in Ghaziabad explaining her non-appearance, Nupur Talwar had asked for time until after a

review petition hearing in the Supreme Court (listed for 27 April, seeking the reversal of its 6 January decision refusing to interfere with the special CBI court’s order to put the couple on trial for the murders.

Rejecting the application, the special CBI judge issued a non-bailable warrant directing the CBI present her before the court by 18 April.

Nupur and her husband Rajesh Talwar are fac-ing trial for the murders of their teenage daugh-ter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

Nupur, now a fugitive, seems to have invited more drama upon herself, which began yester-day with a team of CBI officials arriving at her residence to take her into custody, hounded by television crews camping outside. The lat-est media reports have stated that her husband Rajesh, is also missing.

When Firstpost asked V K Rathi, counsel for Talwars in the Ghaziabad court, about Nupur’s imminent arrest he said, “It is job of the in-vestigation agency, what can we do. The case is pending before the Supreme Court and has been listed for 27 April.” On whether Nupur had contacted him he replied, “Not today (Wednes-day).”

Speculation is now rife that Nupur will move a higher court to cancel the non-bailable warrant. If that too fails, she will have little choice but to surrender before the court.



What next for Nupur Talwar?The Sessions Court today rejected Nupur’s bail

application on the grounds that she is prima facie accused in the double murder.

Pallavi Polanki May 2, 2012

T he focus for Nupur Talwar will now be on the Supreme Court hearing on Friday of her review petition, during which her

lawyers are likely to make an argument for her bail.

No fresh application for bail has been filed in the Allahabad High Court today. The defence

will be banking on the Supreme Court to grant her relief, failing which they will approach the Allahabad High court. The Sessions Court today rejected Nupur’s bail application on the grounds that she is prima facie accused in a double mur-der and that she could hinder smooth disposal of trial.

Nupur was taken into judicial custody following her surrender before the trial court on Monday. The Supreme Court last Friday (27 April) while agreeing to hear her review petition had direct-ed her to surrender before the trial court and refused to grant her anticipatory bail.

Nupur’s review petition seeks to reverse the Supreme Court January 6 order refusing to in-terfere with the trial court’s decision to put her and her husband Rajesh Talwar on trial for the murder of their daughter Aarushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj.



Nupur takes to teaching women inmates at Dasna jail

Nupur is taking Hindi and English lessons, and wants to develop a park in jail.

PTI, May 4, 2012

G haziabad: Denied relief by courts, Nu-pur Talwar, lodged in Dasna Jail since Monday in connection with the alleged

murder of her daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj, has started teaching other women inmates.

"Nupur Tawar expressed desire to teach other inmates which we have allowed," Jail Superin-tendent Viresh Raj Sharma said. Talwar, who is a dentist, is facing trial in the 2008 double-murder case along with her husband Rajesh.

Sharma said Nupur taught Hindi and English to inmates. After the courts rejected her bail plea, Nupur had been distraught. Later, she asked for permission to teach fellow inmates to spend her

time, jail officials said, adding that she has been praying and doing yoga regularly.

"She has been reading books available in the jail and has also examined children who are staying in prison with their mothers," they said.

Nupur also expressed desire to develop a park in the jail, they said.

Sharma said that Nupur is "looking quite nor-mal". Talwar, who is prime accused in the case, yesterday initiated the process for filing a bail petition in the Allahabad High Court, a day after she was denied relife by Ghaziabad court.

Aarushi and Hemraj were found murdered inside the residence of the Noida-based dentist couple four years ago. The case was referred to the CBI by the Uttar Pradesh government fol-lowing an outcry over shoddy investigation bythe police.

A special CBI court at Ghaziabad had earlier rejected Talwar's bail plea saying, "The legal history is replete with instances of matricide, patricide and fratricide. Everything is possible in these days of modern era wherein moral val-ues are fast declining and one can stoop to the lowest extent."



Nupur Talwar wants to write book on daughter’s murder

Three members of the crew, including the director, cameraman and associate director, had visited the

mall barely an hour before the attacks.

PTI, May 9, 2012

G haziabad: Nupur Talwar, prime accused in the murder of her daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj, today ex-

pressed her desire to write a book called Mys-tery behind Aarushi's murder- A Tale of Unfor-tunate Mother.

Superintendent of Dasna jail Viresh Raj Shar-ma, where Nupur is lodged, said she had told him about her wish to write the book.

He said that under jail manual, he was not em-

powered to grant permission for writing or pub-lishing books of jail inmates and only a district judge can allow this.

However, the jail administration can provide her with stationary in case a written permission is granted by the judge, he added.

Sharma said the dentist is teaching jail inmates, including women, since she has been lodged in the jail on 30 April.



Nupur Talwar to leave jail on 25 Sep after receiving bail

The Supreme Court has granted bail to Nupur Tal-war, who has been in judicial custody for the last four months, in the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case.

FP Staff Sep 17, 2012

T he Supreme Court has granted bail to Nupur Talwar, who has been in judicial custody for the last four months, in the

Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case.

The court said that Nupur will be released on bail after 25th September as statements of two witnesses are still to be recorded. The bail will be granted after CBI finishes presenting all its witnesses in trail court.

A CBI court has charged the Talwars under sec-tions 302/34 (murder with common intention) and 201 (destruction of evidence with common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In addition to these, the court charged Rajesh Tal-war under section 203 (giving false information in respect of an offence committed).

Meanwhile the hearing of the case has been un-derway in a special CBI court, with its fair share of twists and turns.

In a dramatic turn of events a few weeks ago, a CBI witness and maid of Rajesh and Nupur Tal-war told the special CBI court here that she was “forced” by the probe agency to give statements in the sensational Aarushi-Hemraj murder case.

The revelation came during her cross-exami-nation by three defence counsel, including one of the counsel for the Talwars, Manoj Sishodia. Bharti, 35, told the court that “I am deposing what ever was taught to me by the CBI”.

Then a senior police officer and a crucial wit-ness in the case told that court that he faced pressure to suppress the rape angle in the post-mortem of the teenager.

Nupur, who has been in jail since her surrender before the Ghaziabad court on 30 April, had moved the apex court challenging the Allahabad High Court’s order which had on 31 May dis-missed her plea for bail.

She had surrendered before the trial court following a stern direction from the Supreme Court, which had also refused to stay a non-bailable warrant issued against her by the lower court on her failure to appear despite an issuing of summons.

The CBI opposing the bail plea, told the court that there are 13 material witnesses in the case who can be influenced if Nupur Talwar is let out on bail. The apex court then directed the CBI to expedite examination of these witnesses.



‘Don’t know what Nupur Talwar’s mental state is after jail’

A family friend of the Talwars speaks of their experience with Nupur Talwar having spent the

last four months in jail.

Pallavi Polanki Sep 26, 2012

“S he has withstood it. I don’t know what her mental state will be. Four months is a long time. I’m sure she

will come out a changed person, in what way we don’t know. One has to wait and see,” says Masooma Ranalvi, a friend of the Talwars about Nupur.

Mother of murdered teenager Aarushi, Nupur will be released from Dasna jail today evening. She was granted bail by the Supreme Court last week.

Nupur and her husband Rajesh are on trial for the 2008 double murder of Aarushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj Banjade. The trial began in a Ghaziabad court in June after the Supreme Court rejected Nupur’s plea to dismiss the trial and re-investigate the case.

The dentist’s release comes four-and-a-half months after she was arrested (on April 30) and sent to Dasna jail where her husband was lodged for two-and-a-half months in 2008 - a week after the murders were committed. He was subsequently released on bail after the CBI could not find any evidence against him.

Nupur’s bail comes as a huge relief to friends and family after both the trial court and the Al-

lahabad High Court had previously rejected her bail application.

“It is a miracle that she hasn’t broken down. Luckily, the trial is happening and everyday she would be in court. That was a good thing. She was surviving on that. Exposure to the outside world, exposure to the trial, this helped her keep her sanity and balance. On the outside, she looks fine. But on the inside, I don’t know how she is coping,” Ranalvi said.

Ranalvi had visited Nupur in Dasna jail soon after her arrest. Recalling the meeting, she said, “She was anxious to know about what was hap-pening in the world outside. Her concern was knowing all the nitty-gritty’s of the trial. Earlier, she was very actively involved with the case - in terms of meeting lawyers, collecting documents and so on. When she moved out, the whole thing fell on Rajesh. When I went to meet her, Rajesh and I, half the time she wanted to know how the trial was going, what media was report-ing.”

Asked about how Rajesh had coped during his time in jail, Ranalvi said: “He is far more frag-ile than she is. It broke him. His arrest was a complete surprise. He didn’t expect that he was going to be arrested. When you know you are going to be arrested, you are mentally prepared. It was torture for him. She was more prepared, she is far stronger.”

The sensational media coverage of Nupur’s stay in jail had led to spate of reports, including one about her authoring her a book, which Ranalvi in an earlier interview to Firstpost had dis-missed. (Read full report here )


http://www.firstpost.com/india/talwars-living-in-a-bubble-of-sorrow-339283.html


How the trial progressed



Talwars charged with murder, destruction of evidence

Additional charges have also been framed against Rajesh Talwar for filing what it has referred to as

a “misleading FIR”, which has been described as an attempt to mislead the court.

FP Staff May 24, 2012

T he Ghaziabad sessions court has pro-nounced its order on the framing of charges against Nupur and Rajesh Tal-

war, the two main accused in the Aarushi-Hem-raj double murder case.

The Talwars will be charged under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for murder. Additional charges have also been framed against Rajesh Talwar under section 203 of the IPC for filing a "misleading FIR", in an attempt to mislead the court.

The couple has also been charged with sections 34 and 201 of the IPC.

Section 34 IPC mentions, "When a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone."

Section 201 IPC charges people for causing dis-appearance of evidence of offence, or for provid-ing false information to protect the offender.

The Talwars were both present at the in camera session of the court when the framing of charges were announced.

In its arguments before the court, the CBI told said that the couple found Aarushi and Hemraj in a compromising position. Quoting from the postmortem report of the two, the CBI counsel said Talwars killed Aarushi and Hemraj in quick succession, as there was not much gap between the timings of their deaths. He accused Nupur Talwar of slitting Aarushi's throat to kill her.

Nupur, however, personally, dismissed the charge saying that they belonged to an elite class of society where one does not kill anyone for indulging in sexual acts. She added that they dearly loved their daughter and there was no question of killing her.

The counsel for the Talwars added that Hemraj had killed Aarushi while attempting to rob the house, adding, however, that it was not clear as to who killed Hemraj and the CBI miserably failed in solving the case.

Nupur Talwar is already in the Dasna jail, fol-lowing a non appearance in one of the hearings.


http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/indianpenalcode/s34.htm


Talwars’ indifference was shocking on fateful day: Witness

An erstwhile Noida administration officer today told a court here that he was “shocked” to see the

“indifferent attitude” of dentist couple Nupur and Rajesh Talwar on the fateful day of Aarushi’s death.

PTI, Jul 18, 2012

G haziabad: An erstwhile Noida admin-istration officer today told a court here that he was "shocked" to see the "indif-

ferent attitude" of dentist couple Nupur and Rajesh Talwar on the fateful day when the body of their teenaged daughter Aarushi was recov-ered from their flat.

Deposing as a prosecution witness, Sanjay Chauhan, who was posted as an additional mag-istrate in Noida in 2008, told special CBI court that around the time Aarushi's body was recov-ered in her flat, he was passing by the area after an early morning walk.

He added that finding a crowd outside the Tal-wars' house, he ventured to enquire as to what has happened and entered the house to assess

the situation after coming to know that a girl was murdered in the house.

Chauhan, who is now posted as Meerut sub-di-visional magistrate, told the court that he went to the crime spot to assess the situation and was shocked to see that Aarushi's parents were total-ly indifferent to the murder of their own daugh-ter. "I was shocked to see there was no trace of sorrow on the Talwars," he told the court, while identifying them as Aarushi's parents.

He said that he waited for about an hour there for the "panchnama" of the body, but when it was not done he returned to his house.

He added that he had heard Rajesh telling the police to search for Hemraj instead of wast-ing time questioning him. He said his state-ment was recorded by the CBI on November 12, 2008.

When defence counsel Manoj Shishodia ques-tioned him as to why did he go to the crime spot without any official order, Chauhan said he was additional working magistrate in the office of Noida district's magistrate and was "well within my power and jurisdiction to enquire into an incident, if I come across one."



Aarushi muder case: Contradictions in doc’s statements, autopsy report

The Defence in Aarushi-Hemraj murder today claimed that there were “massive contradictions” in the

statements of the doctor, who conducted the post-mortem on Aarushi

PTI, Jul 25, 2012

G haziabad: The Defence in Aarushi-Hemraj murder today claimed that there were "massive contradictions" in

the statements of the doctor, who conducted the post-mortem on Aarushi, a day after he was fielded by CBI as a witness in court.

The statements of Sunil Kumar Dohre, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Noida, which were recorded in the chief examination, the ones re-corded before the CBI investigation officer and in the postmortem report contradict each other, Defence counsel Satyakatu Singh told the court following cross examination of the witness.

During his day-long cross examination by defence, Dohre said he did not record whether Arushi was sexually assaulted before the mur-der in the post mortem report.

He said that he did not take the blood samples of Arushi during postmortem as such blood samples were "normally" taken only when DNA tests had to be conducted.

Dhore stated that he did not record in the post-mortem report that the injuries on the body of

Arushi were due to golf stick and sharp surgi-cal instruments but out of the four injuries two were due to blunt object and the other two were from "small sharp weapon".

During deposition yesterday Dhore had said that pattern of injuries on the bodies of Aarushi and Hemraj was the same.

"There were four injuries on the body of the victim. Injuries 1 and 3 were by golf stick and 2 and 4 were by surgical instruments. Aarushi died due to lack of blood in the body," he had said.

Dhore had told the court he was present at the time when Hemraj's autopsy was conducted and saw that the victim's throat had been slit and the "pattern of cutting it was same (as that of Aarushi) and the cuts were clean."

"Hemraj was also murdered with the surgical tools," he had said adding that the nature of injuries on the bodies of Aarushi and Hemraj was same.

"In Dhore's statements improvements were done under the pressure of the CBI," the de-fence counsel alleged. However, public prosecu-tor R. K Saini contended that "subjective find-ings are not written in the postmortem report" and hence there was no contradiction in the statements.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents' Noida residence May 16, 2008 while the body of the family's domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house. Aa-rushi's parents — Rajesh and Nupur Talwar — are facing trial in the double murder case.



‘Was under pressure to hide rape angle in Aarushi’s postmortem’

A senior police officer and a crucial witness in Aa-rushi-Hemraj murder case today deposed before a

special CBI court here that he faced pressure to suppress the rape angle in the postmortem

of the teenager.

PTI, Aug 30, 2012

G haziabad: A senior police officer and a crucial witness in Aarushi-Hemraj murder case today deposed before a

special CBI court here that he faced pressure to suppress the rape angle in the postmortem of the teenager.

Former Noida Superintendent of Police K K Gautam, during chief examination told the court that chairman of Noida Eye Hospital, Sushil Chaudhry, a friend of slain teenager Aarushi's uncle Dinesh Talwar, had called him and requested him to hide the rape angle in the postmortem.

However, he said that he refused to oblige Dinesh Talwar, the elder brother of Aarushi's father and accused Rajesh Talwar. "But I said I can not help in this matter," Gautam told the court.

Gautam also told the trial court that he was asked to ensure expeditious postmortem. Gau-

tam is the first crucial witness out of the 13 who have been directed to depose before September 17.

He said Chaudhry also called him on May 17, 2008 morning to accompany him to the condo-lence meeting for Aarushi. They both went there and attended the condolence meeting, where Chaudhry introduced him to Dinesh, Gautam said. The witness identified Dinesh in the court today.

"I also asked Dinesh to show me the crime spot. He took me to the rooms of Aarushi and Hem-raj and near the staircase which led to the roof where he showed me the blood stains on the staircase and railing," Gautam said in his depo-sition.

The witness further stated in his chief exami-nation that Dinesh also requested him to get the lock at the staircase opened. "Then I called Superintendent of Police (city) Mahesh Mishra and informed him that there are some blood stains and the lock need to be opened," he said.

Mishra, according to Gautam, said he would reach the spot but before that he would send the then station officer Dataram Nauneria. "The SO reached the crime spot and asked for the key, but Dinesh said he did not have it. The SO then broke open the lock and reached the roof where they found blood on the middle of the roof and a body was dragged from there to a corner," he said.

The body was covered by a bedsheet and a cool-



er penal was also lying on it. Police asked about the body, but Dinesh feigned ignorance about his identity. Meanwhile, the Superintendent of Police (City) had also reached the spot.

The Talwars' counsel also crossed examined the witness. The cross examination of the wit-ness was completed today. Further hearing will

continue tomorrow.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents' Noida residence May 16, 2008 while the body of the family's domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house. Aa-rushi's parents — Rajesh and Nupur Talwar — are facing trial in the double murder case.



My statement was dictated by the CBI: Aarushi case witness

CBI witness and slain teenager Aarushi Talwar’s part-time maid told a special court here Tuesday that

whatever was recorded in her statement was dictated to her by the probe agency.

IANS, Sep 4, 2012

G haziabad: CBI witness and slain teenag-er Aarushi Talwar's part-time maid told a special court here Tuesday that what-

ever was recorded in her statement was dictated to her by the probe agency.

Bharti Mandal, during her cross-examination before Special Judge S. Lal, said that she had never appeared before the Central Bureau of In-vestigation (CBI) to get her statement recorded.

Following the witness' remarks, the probe agen-cy's counsel took the maid outside the court for a few minutes.

A domestic help, witness in the Aarushi case, said that her statement was directed by the CBI.The defence lodged a complaint over this and the court took a serious view on matter and rep-rimanded the CBI.

Defence counsel Manoj Shishodia said several

contradictions had surfaced during the maid's cross-examination.

The CBI submitted her three statements - re-corded in 2008 - but she said that her statement in court was the first ever given by her.

She claimed once she spoke before a video cam-era which she did not know belonged to media or the probe agency.

The defence claimed that the CBI mentioned the name of the maid's husband differently at three places in the case documents.

Shishodia said her husband was identified at three places as Vishnu Mandal, Bhim Mandal and Vishu Mandal.

After Bharti Mandal's statement, the court ad-journed the hearing till Wednesday.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents' Noida residence May 16, 2008. The body of her domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house.

Aarushi's parents are accused in the double-murder.

Her mother Nupur Talwar was taken into custo-dy April 30 and she challenged in the apex court the May 31 Allahabad High Court order reject-ing her bail plea. She is lodged in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad. Aarushi's father Rajesh Talwar is out on bail.



Neighbour says on day of Aarushi murder, Talwars had taken his terrace key

A neighbour of Talwars told a CBI court hearing the Aarushi-Hemraj case that he never saw the door of

their terrace locked and the couple’s driver had twice come to take keys of his terrace on the day the girl’s murder came to light, saying their own

key was misplaced.

PTI, Sep 8, 2012

G haziabad: A neighbour of Talwars yesterday told a CBI court hearing the Aarushi-Hemraj case that he never saw

the door of their terrace locked and the couple's driver had twice come to take keys of his terrace on the day the girl's murder came to light, say-ing their own key was misplaced.

Puneesh Rai Tandon, who lives on the right side of Talwars' L-32 house and was yesterday fielded by the CBI, stated in the special CBI trial court here that he never saw the door of the terrace closed at the residential premises of the Talwars at Noida where the twin murder had taken place.

He stated the door was closed on the day of the crime.

Aarushi was found murdered on 16 May 2008 in her bedroom, while the body of Hemraj, domestic help of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, was found the next day on the terrace.

The defence counsel in his cross examination asked the witness if he checked the terrace gate daily to which he replied in the negative.

Defence counsel Manoj Shishodia asked the wit-ness whether he had checked the terrace door on 14 May and 15 May 2008, to which Tandon said no.

Tandon is the sixth witness produced in the court yesterday and seven more witnesses have to be examined as per the order of the Supreme Court in the case and for consideration of bail for Nupur Talwar, who is an accused in the murder case along with her husband.

Tandon, who went to Talwars' house at 6.15 am after hearing commotion, claimed that Aarushi's family had not informed the police till then and he had called the security guard, Virendra Singh, of Jalviyu Vihar Sector 25, No-ida, and told him to inform the police about the murder.

Tandon also told the court that "the same day in the evening at about 4 O' clock, Umesh, driver of Rajesh Talwar came to me to take the key of my flat's terrace. Umesh said that the key of L-32 terrace has been misplaced."

He said before the court that "I asked Umesh why did he need the key of my terrace, at which he told me he wanted to throw away ice on the terrace which was brought to keep the body of Aarushi.

"I went to the terrace and opened the lock and



Umesh, with some more people, kept the ice at my terrace. Umesh again came to me at 4 O’ clock and asked me to open the door.

"I asked him why did he need the key again and again. Umesh told me that the mattress and bed sheet have to be kept at the terrace because they had to clean the house.

"I again went there and opened the lock. Two to three people with Umesh kept the mattress covered with bed sheet dragging.

"I again locked the door and returned down stairs."

He also deposed before the court that "on May 17, 2008 Anita Durrani, a friend of the Talwars came to me and asked for the duplicate key of the terrace of L-32.

"I said that I did not have the duplicate key. Af-ter some time, the driver of my neighbour came to me and told that the dead body of Hemraj was found on the terrace of L-32."

He also told the court that he gave a golf stick bag to Dr Rajesh Talwar 8 to 9 years back. He identified the bag in the court.

On the day Aarushi's murder came to light,

when he went inside house, Nupur was sitting on a sofa while Rajesh was sitting in the bed room, he said.

He told the court that her mother, "while weep-ing, told me that Hemraj killed Aarushi and fled.

"Afterwards I entered Dr Rajesh Talwar’s bed room where he was weeping. I tried to console him by putting my hand on his shoulders but Rajesh pushed my hands and went inside Aa-rushi's room.

"I also followed him to the room, where Dr Nu-pur Talwar was sitting near the body of Aarushi and Rajesh sat at the feet of the body. Nupur was sitting silently."

The witness stated that he asked Nupur's father whether he had called the police at which he replied that their landline is out of order and added that he would go to his house and call his son (brother of Nupur) who was living in Dubai and then he left the house of the Talwars.

The witness stated that he also returned to his house after that and called the security guard to inform the police that in house number L-32 some incident had occurred.



Forensic experts never saw murder weapon, says defence

The defence argued that while iron golf club No. 5 had been identified by the CBI in its final report

as the murder weapon.

Pallavi Polanki Oct 30, 2013

C ontesting the CBI's case that a golf club was used by the accused to deliver the fatal blows that killed the victims, the

defence on Tuesday argued that there was no scientific evidence to link the golf club to the crime and that the procedure used by the CBI to identify it as the murder weapon rendered it inadmissible as evidence.

The defence, which is making its final argu-ments in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case before a special CBI court in Ghaziabad, also pointed out that the conclusion that the CBI had come to in identifying the murder weapon was contrary to the forensic evidence.

The defence argued that while iron golf club No. 5 had been identified by the CBI in its final re-port as the murder weapon, it was not one of the two golf clubs that the forensic report by Central Forensic Science Lab (CFSL) had identified as being more clean than the others (an indication, according to the CBI, that the alleged murder weapon was ‘cleaned’ by the accused to destroy evidence.)

As per the CFSL report, out of the 12 clubs that were seized from accused Rajesh Talwar and examined, there were two golf clubs—iron golf club No. 4 and a wooden golf club No. 5—that had ‘less soil’ than the others.

"According to Deepak Tanwar (from the Physics division of CFSL who conducted the examina-tion) the wooden golf club No. 5 and iron club No. 4 had negligible amount of soil compared to others. The CBI's case, however, is that iron golf club No. 5 was murder weapon. The pros-ecution’s case fails the test of evidence because the CBI has laid the allegation that the accused cleaned the golf club which is the murder weap-on but the murder weapon that they are seek-ing to prove is actually dirty as per the forensic report. So their theory fails," argued Tanveer Ahmed Mir, defence lawyer for the Talwars.The defence further pointed out that biology division of CFSL, in its report on the golf clubs, had found no blood or DNA on any of the 12 golf clubs.

The defence also questioned the credibility of the testimony of the two doctors who identified the golf club as a possible murder weapon for the very first time one-and-a-half years after the crime was committed.

Sunil Dohre (who conducted the post-mortem on Aarushi) identified the golf club as a possible weapon – having earlier in the 2008 AIIMS ex-pert committee endorsed ‘khukri’ as a possible murder weapon – for the first time in what was his fifth statement to the investigating authori-ties, on 30 September 2010. And Naresh Raj (who conducted the post-mortem on Hemraj) did the same a month later on 12 October, 2010, for the first time in what was his fourth state-



ment. Raj, like Dohre, was part of the AIIMS expert committee that had endorsed ‘khukri’ as a possible murder weapon.

Questioning the "tearing hurry" with which MS Dahiya, then a deputy director at the Gandhina-gar-based Forensic Science Lab (FSL), submit-ted his report (on 26 October 2010, shortly after the CBI re-recorded the statements of the two doctors) in which he "propounded the golf club theory", defence lawyer Mir said in court, "It is an admitted case of the prosecution that the golf club was neither sent to Dahiya nor to Dohre or to Raj. But when we see Dahiya's report, is it not clear that he was in a tearing hurry to en-dorse the golf club theory….This court would have never seen a murder case where a forensic expert has given an opinion endorsing a murder weapon without first seeing the weapon in ques-tion. Is this not something which surprises the conscience of this court?"

Incidentally, the golf clubs were seized from Rajesh Talwar by the CBI on 30 October 2009, four days after the Dahiya submitted his report propounding the golf club theory. "How come a forensic expert gave opinion on a golf club prior to the seizure of the golf club?" asked Mir.

Further, the defence, relying on a Supreme Court judgement, challenged the admissibil-ity as of the golf club that was allegedly used to commit the murders, as evidence in court. The defence argued that the CBI had not conducted the Test Identification Parade (referring to the procedure in which the alleged weapon was sought to be identified) before a judicial mag-istrate and that, therefore, as a per a Supreme Court judgement, such TIPs (that were conduct-ed by the Investigating Officer himself) were inadmissible in law.

The defence also questioned the basis of the CBI’s "identification" of alleged murder weap-on—iron golf club No. 5—by Rajesh Talwar’s driver Umesh Sharma. The CBI's case is that

Rajesh Talwar used one of the two golf clubs that were in Hemraj’s room to kill Aarushi and Hemraj and that one of those two golf clubs was iron golf club No. 5.The golf clubs were put in Hemraj’s room four months earlier by Rajesh’s driver Umesh Shar-ma. He was called by the CBI in August 2010, more than two years after he put the clubs in Hemraj's room, to identify the two golf clubs.

"Was it humanly possible for Umesh Sharma to identify the two golf clubs he admittedly placed in Hemraj’s room. Was he supposed to know the golf clubs from the engraving numbers? The CBI is of the considered opinion that Umesh Sharma from January 2008 to 2 August 2010, remembered that the two clubs that he put in servant’s room were of golf clubs with the en-gravings No.4 and No. 5….These golf clubs were identified in a farcical test identification parade by investigating officer himself and not, as should have been done, before a judicial magis-trate."

The defence arguments will continue on Wednesday.

Dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are on trial for murders of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj. On May 16, 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found mur-dered in her apartment in Noida. A day later, the body of domestic help Hemraj was discov-ered on the terrace of the three-storey apart-ment. The Talwars were at home on the night the murders were committed.

By the CBI's own admission there is no foren-sic evidence that connects the couple to the murders. Relying entirely on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution has argued that the Talwars tried to ‘mislead’ the investigation and that they ‘destroyed’ evidence. The prosecution has relied largely on the ‘conduct’ of the Talwars as key circumstantial evidence against them.



The problems with the CBI case



Aarushi murder: The curious case of the ‘missing’ golf club

A particular golf club was used to kill Aarushi and Hemraj, claims CBI, a theory contradicted

by its own lab.


Editor's note: Firstpost is running a series on the bizarre contradictions in official investiga-tions into the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case that has gripped the nation since 2008. The contradictions we highlight are based entirely on the CBI’s own reports, and applica-tions submitted to the special CBI court during the course of the investigation. Today we look at how the second CBI crime scene report uses circumstantial evidence to disregard the find-ings of a 7-member medical team in the imme-diate aftermath of the murder. Read the first and second story in the series here and here.

A bout month after a second CBI team took over the Aarushi-Hemraj mur-der investigation, Rajesh Talwar’s golf

set was seized for forensic testing. The seizure memo is dated 30 October 2009. The set com-prising three woods (engraved with numbers 3, 4, 5) eight iron clubs (numbered 3,4,5,6,7,8,9) and one iron putter was duly sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory.

After reaching the CFSL, the golf set parcel remained untouched for five months. It was fi-nally opened on 15 April 2010 and three months later (13 July 2010), the CFSL sent its report to the CBI.

In December that year, the CBI caught every-one by surprise when they filed a report in the special CBI court seeking to close the two-and-a-half year old double-murder case for want of evidence to link the perpetrators to the mur-ders.

In the closure report, the CBI zeroed in on a cer-tain ‘the golf club No 5’ as the murder weapon that killed Aarushi and Hemraj. The CBI went

on to explain why its ‘golf club theory’ was bang on in the closure report. The report said that “two of the golf clubs from golf set handed over by Rajesh Talwar were cleaner than the other golf clubs of the set.”

This, incidentally, is where the extraordinary theory begins to unravel.

For the record, the CBI has made no secret that “no biological fluid or DNA could be recovered from the golf clubs handed over by Rajesh Tal-war”.

As part of the build-up to its theory, the CBI in the closure report says that Rajesh used two golf clubs when he played and these he kept in his car. And these were the two golf clubs that had been left in Hemraj’s room when the car had to be serviced a few days earlier.

Curiously, in the photographs that were taken by the forensic team after the CBI took over the case from the Uttar Pradesh Police two weeks after the murders, only one golf club was visible. And according to the CBI, Rajesh Talwar, who


http://www.firstpost.com/delhi/is-the-final-cbi-case-on-aarushi-too-reliant-on-speculation-186098.html

http://www.firstpost.com/breaking%20views/why-did-cbi-discard-crucial-evidence-in-aarushi-case-184640.html


at that time was in custody, had no explanation as to where the missing golf club was.

This is where the closure report and its theory on the golf club attempt to get really ‘scientific’. “The dimensions of the striking surface of the golf club bearing No 5 were identical to the dimensions of the injury on the heads of victim Aarushi and Hemraj. The expert also pointed out that golf clubs bearing No 3 & 5 appeared to have been thoroughly cleaned so much so that they were visibly distinct from the other golf clubs of the set. (The implication here being that these have been thoroughly washed to rid it of blood stains)

Only, that is not what the CFSL said in its report on the golf clubs.

According to the July 2010 CFSL report, the reference to numbers ‘3’ and ‘5’ in the context of being more clean than the others was not to numbers on the golf club but to Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 5.

The CFSL report on examination of golf clubs – three wooden and eight iron clubs – found that the soil found on golf clubs “marked as Exhibits 3 and 5” was negligible in comparison to that found on the others. Exhibit 3 comprised a wooden golf club with marking 5 and Exhibit 5 was an iron golf club with marking 4.

Therefore, according to the CFSL report, it is a wooden golf club No5 and an iron golf club No 4 (and not golf club No 3 as claimed by the CBI

in the closure report) that appear to be cleaner than the rest in the set.

Alright. So there is a golf club number 5 that is cleaner and that merits investigation.

And so it must be this golf club — the wooden golf club marked No 5 (Exhibit 3) which the CFSL has certified as having less soil on it than the others — that was used in committing in the crime. It follows then that it must be this very golf club that was missing from the photograph of Hemraj’s room taken by the forensic team two weeks after the murder.

Besides, as the CBI states in the closure report, “Ajay Chadha (a family friend of the Talwars’) confirmed that he and Nupur Talwar had found one golf stick in the loft of the residence of Dr Talwar near the room of Aarushi…”

But what the closure reports forgets to men-tion is that the golf club found in the loft was an iron golf club. Recall that Rajesh’s golf set had two No 5 golf clubs– one wooden and one iron. And CFSL makes it abundantly clear that it was a wooden golf club with Number 5 that was cleaner.

The CBI will need to explain this inconsistency.

The CBI's purported theory that the golf club which was used to murder Aarushi and Hemraj was missing because it was hidden and recov-ered only after it was cleaned is contradicted by the findings of its own lab reports.



Why wasn’t LCN testing used in Aarushi-Hemraj investigation?

A petition that sought a reinvestigation of the case, registered by Rajesh Talwar on how the CBI had

selectively ignored material evidence was rejected by a judicial magistrate. The protests in the petition

however raise very important questions.


Editor’s note: Firstpost is running a series on the bizarre contradictions in the official in-vestigations into the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case that has gripped the nation since 2008. The contradictions we highlight are based entirely on the CBI’s own reports, and applications submitted to the special CBI court during the course of the investigation. In this last story of the series we examine how clue after clue the CBI has selectively ignored mate-rial evidence . Read the first and second story in the series here and here. And the third story here.

N ew Delhi: On 9 February 2011, when special judicial magistrate Preeti Singh converted the CBI’s closure report

into a chargesheet and summoned Rajesh and Nupur Talwar to stand trial for the murders of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hem-raj, she rejected a protest petition by Rajesh Talwar on how the CBI had selectively ignored material evidence while introducing evidence that is “uncorroborated and unsubstantiated and even false.”

The 45-page petition by Talwar raised many crucial questions on the CBI’s investigation and highlighted how key clues and leads were over-looked or ignored. It questioned the basis of the CBI’s controversial conclusion that neither intruders nor servants could have been involved in the murders.

The most obvious piece of evidence about the involvement of an outsider, as the petition pointed out, was the presence of a shoe-print of size 8 on the terrace where Hemraj’s body was

found. Rajesh’s shoe size is 6.

“..there is no investigation pertaining to a shoe-print found on the terrace near the door (size 8 or 9 as communicated to the petitioner (Rajesh) during the earlier part of the investigation…as against size 6 worn by the petitioner) creates doubt whether all possible angles of investiga-tion were aggressively pursued by the CBI,” stated the petition, which had also sought a re-investigation of the case.

When there is a live-in domestic help, is it not possible that someone known to him could have gained friendly access into the house? It is a known fact that on the morning that Aarushi was found dead in her room, Hemraj’s food was found in the kitchen, served on his plate but un-touched. Did Hemraj have an unexpected visitor that night? Did the CBI investigate what Hemraj was doing between dinner and 12 midnight?

The petition highlighted the CBI’s puzzling re-luctance to go in for what was perhaps the only


http://www.firstpost.com/delhi/is-the-final-cbi-case-on-aarushi-too-reliant-on-speculation-186098.html

http://www.firstpost.com/breaking%20views/why-did-cbi-discard-crucial-evidence-in-aarushi-case-184640.html

http://www.firstpost.com/delhi/aarushi-murder-the-curious-case-of-the-missing-golf-club-2-187125.html

http://www.firstpost.com/delhi/aarushi-murder-the-curious-case-of-the-missing-golf-club-2-187125.html


hope for finding new evidence in the case. De-spite repeated requests by the Talwars to send exhibits collected from the crime scene for Low Copy Number (LCN) testing — an advanced scientific technique which can be used to ob-tain DNA evidence from objects that have been touched by the perpetrator — the CBI chose to close the case without exploring that option.

DNA, as is well-known, can last a long time – years, even centuries. LCN testing, which has been used to solve many high profile cases in West, helped the UK police in 2000 convict a man for a murder committed 23 years ago.

Given the availability of such a groundbreak-ing technology, why has the CBI refused to send exhibits such as the blood-stained scotch bottle or samples from the bloody hand-print from the terrace wall for LCN testing?

An important lead, the petition pointed out, that was ignored by the CBI was a call received on Hemraj’s phone on the night he was mur-dered. The telephone call records collected by the police, the petition pointed out, showed that Hemraj had received a call made from a neigh-bourhood PCO at 8.27 pm on May 15, about four hours before he was murdered.

Who made this call? This unresolved aspect becomes important as Hemraj’s phone had been picked up on the morning of 16 May (when Nu-pur had called his phone at 6.01 am) and it was picked up by someone who was in the range of

the mobile tower which covered the neighbour-hood in which the PCO is located.

The petition also questioned the basis on which the CBI had disregarded the Narco analysis tests, which the CBI admits is the only evidence that is available against the servants – Krishna (Rajesh’s compounder) Raj Kumar (domestic help of family friends of the Talwars who lived in the neighbourhood) and Vijay Mandal (who also worked in the neighbourhood).

“The validity of such reports or its admissibility is to be decided in a court of law only but the in-vestigating agency cannot rely on its subsequent inadmissibility for not taking leads from these tests for the purpose of solving the case.”

One such lead from the Narco test being a reference to a certain t-shirt. One of the serv-ants while undergoing the Narco analysis test referred to a blue and grey T-shirt worn by him at the time that the crime was committed. The existence of such a t-shirt was confirmed by his employer. Has the CBI tried to find this t-shirt?

And so it goes on. Clue after clue, abandoned without further investigation for reasons unex-plained by the CBI.

Yet, questions raised in the protest petition re-mained unheard and unanswered. With a scan-dalously faulty investigation declared complete, it remains to be seen what the trial will bring.



Aarushi- Hemraj trial: more holes in prosecution’s case

So far the prosecution has proved little against the Talwars who are accused of murdering their daughter

and domestic help and then destroying evidence.


T he Aarushi-Hemraj murder trial that is being heard by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad has only emphasized the ago-

nizing mystery that persists over what actually happened on the night in May 2008 that left a teenager and a domestic help murdered in their flat in Noida.

The teenager’s parents – Rajesh and Nupur Talwar – have been charged with the dou-ble murder and of destroying evidence. Their long-drawn legal battle to dismiss the trial and re-investigate the case ended in June after the Supreme Court rejected Nupur Talwar’s plea.

Four months into the trial, many of CBI’s key witnesses have testified, continuing the pattern of contradictions that has defined the investi-gating agency’s findings in the case.

Driver Umesh Sharma, the maid Bharti Mandal, Rajesh’s former colleagues Rohit Kochhar and Rajiv Varshney, the doctor who performed Aa-rushi’s post-mortem Sunil Dohare, a former UP cop KK Gautam and forensic expert BK Mohap-atra have testified.

All of them, crucial links to the story in the prosecution’s case built entirely on circumstan-tial evidence.

Sharma, , the last known witness to have seen Aarushi and Hemraj alive at the Talwar resi-dence with Rajesh and Nupur, and now contin-ues to be Talwars’ driver, was declared hostile by the CBI after he could not identify the alleged murder weapon – golf club number 5.

A couple months before the murders were committed, Sharma had left two golf clubs in Hemraj’s room. According to the CBI, the fatal head injuries caused by a blunt object could have been inflicted by club number 5. And their contention was that it was one of the two clubs that was placed in Hemraj’s room.

But with Sharma a hostile witness, there is no evidence the alleged murder weapon was indeed in Hemraj’s room on the night of the murders.

An equally crucial witness, the maid Bharti Mandal, the first to see the couple on the morn-ing that Aarushi’s body was found, took the wind out of the prosecution’s sails when she told the court she was tutored by the CBI on what to say. In effect, her statement insinuating that the Talwars only pretended to be locked in when she arrived for work at around 6 am on 16 May stood discredited. The house was indeed locked from outside when she arrived. This leaves a big question mark on prosecution’s case that has ruled out the role of outsiders.

The prosecution is heavily relying on witness statements that point to what seem like at-tempts by the dentist to couple obstruct or mis-lead the investigation. Among key prosecution witnesses who have been called to testify on the



conduct of the couple soon after the Aarushi’s body was discovered are two of Rajesh’s former colleagues – Kochhar and Varshney, a neighbor, and most damningly a former police officer KK Gautam.

Varshney and Kochhar were the first to notice blood stains on the stairs leading up to the ter-race and the terrace door. They told the court that Rajesh, when told that there were blood stains on the stairs walked towards the terrace, but then turned around and returned to the flat. And that when he was asked for terrace keys, nothing came of it.

The most damaging testimony on the conduct of the Talwars’, however, has been that of retired cop KK Gautam who told the court that he was asked by a common friend Sushil Chaudhary, at the behest of Rajesh’s brother Dinesh, to use his influence to not mention‘rape’ in the post-mor-tem report. He told the court that he refused to concede to the request.

The highlights of the testimony of Dohare, the doctor conducted the post-mortem on Aarushi, included his statement to the court that the murder weapon could have been a golf club, and his observations on the state in which he found the private parts of the deceased teenager.

While the post-mortem report by Dohare re-corded ‘no abnormal activity’, he told the court that it appeared to him that Aarushi’s private parts had been ‘manipulated’ and that the vagi-nal cavity was dilated. Asked by the defence why he had not recorded his finding in the post-mor-tem report, Dohare said these were his ‘subjec-tive findings’ and therefore not recorded.

Given that Dohare, during the course of the investigation has repeatedly improved on his statements with every subsequent sitting with the CBI, how seriously the court will take his evidence remains to be seen.

In what remains to be a gaping hole in the prosecution’s case is material evidence to prove motive. As forensic expert BK Mahapatra’s testimony ultimately showed, no male DNA was found in Aarushi’s room.

The CBI’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory expert Mahapatra evidence to the court also brought up another controversial piece of evi-dence – the blood of Hemraj on the pillow cover of Krishna Thadarai, Rajesh’s compounder.Mahapatra was part of the team that collected evidence from Krishna’s home in June 2008. The items seized included a pillow cover that was sent to the Hyderabad-based Centre for DNA fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD).

The explosive finding in the CDFD report, that confirmed the discovery of the blood one of the murdered victims on the Krishna’s pillow, has been dismissed by the prosecution as a typo-graphical error. Based on what isn't clear yet.

Last week, the prosecution sought to submit ten additional documents to the court as evidence, a move that was objected to by the defence. Rea-son: It includes the all important letter from the CDFD admitting to the typographical error in its report. On Saturday, the court allowed the documents.

Next hearing in the case is scheduled for 5 Octo-ber.



Servants admitted to killing Aarushi, Hemraj: CBI inspector

The admission was made by CBI inspector MS Fartiyal, a witness of the prosecution, during

cross-examination on Wednesday.

Pallavi Polanki Mar 21, 2013

I n what could be potentially damaging to the CBI’s case, an inspector of the agency told a Ghaziabad trial court that the three

servants had admitted to the double murder. These servants were previously suspected of the crime and were not cooperating with the inves-tigation.

The 2008 Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case is being heard by a special CBI court in Ghazia-bad.

The admission was made by CBI inspector MS Fartiyal, a witness of the prosecution, during cross-examination on Wednesday (20 March). Fartiyal was part of the first CBI team headed by Arun Kumar that investigated the case for the first 15 months. The investigation was sub-sequently handed over to a second CBI team headed by Neelabh Kishore in September 2009.

Speaking to Firspost, Tanveer Ahmed, counsel for the dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, who have been charged with the double murder, said, "CBI inspector MS Fartiyal was assisting the investigating officer Vijay Kumar. The ques-

tion put to him was whether during the inves-tigation, he gained knowledge that the Nepali servants Rajkumar, Vijay Mandal and Krishna Thadarai had admitted to the CBI to commit-ting the double murder of Aarushi and Hemraj. The witness replied in the affirmative that they had admitted to us (CBI) they had committed the double murder."

Asked if this was a significant development, the counsel said, "You may call it a significant de-velopment. This was already part of the investi-gation. The fact of the matter is they (servants) were arrested and had admitted to the crime."

After the first CBI team took over the case, Krishna Thadarai (Rajesh Talwar’s compound-er), Vijay Mandal (domestic help of one of the neighbours) and Raj Kumar (domestic help of the Durranis, family friends of the Talwars who lived in the neighbourhood) had been arrested and were named accused in the double murder case. But they were subsequently released on bail by the CBI for 'lack of evidence'.

Reacting to Fartiyal’s statement in court, CBI counsel RK Saini said, “This is not a significant development. When the police officer has to submit application for extension of police re-mand, they have to make out grounds that the suspects are involved in the case and are not cooperating and therefore we want their police custody. The defence counsel’s question to the witness was whether he (Fartiyal) was aware that they (the three servants) were involved in the crime as per his application (before the court for extension of remand). And he (Fartiy-al) replied that his application was that though they (servants) were involved they were not cooperating and therefore the CBI wanted their



police remand.

“Secondly, suppose there is an investigation and someone is suspected as accused. But at a later stage, the persons are found to be innocent. The net result is that nothing was found against them (servants) and they were discharged."

Asked what the role of Fartiyal was in the inves-tigation, the CBI counsel said, he was assisting the main investigating officer and was responsi-ble for seizing all the relevant documents from

the Noida Police when the case was transferred to the CBI.

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are on trial for the murder of their daughter teenage daughter Aarushi Talwar and the domestic help Hemraj. In 2008, on the intervening night of 15–16 May, Aarushi Talwar and 45-year-old Nepali domes-tic help Hemraj were brutally murdered at the couple’s apartment in Noida.



Aarushi-Hemraj murders: Key elements that will decide the verdict

Final arguments have begun in the Arushi-Hemraj murder trial. Here are all the major

developments till now.


A year and three months after the Aarushi-Hemraj murder trial began in a Special CBI court in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh,

CBI’s lawyers began their final arguments be-fore the judge on Thursday.

The crime, committed more than six years ago, has attracted massive media attention from the time the news broke on the morning of May 16, 2008 when 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found murdered in her apartment in Noida.

A day later, the body of domestic help Hemraj was discovered on the terrace of the three-sto-rey apartment. On trial for the two murders are Aarushi’s parents - dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar - who were in the house on the night the crime was committed.

By the prosecution’s own admission, there is no material evidence, forensic or otherwise, that implicates Rajesh and Nupur of committing the murders. Built on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution’s case is based on the ‘last seen theory’, that is, the victims were last seen alive with the accused.

For a conviction, the prosecution has to con-vince the judge beyond reasonable doubt that there was absolutely no possibility of a third party entering or having entered the third-floor apartment between the evening that Rajesh, Nupur, Rajesh, Aarushi and Hemraj were seen together and the next morning when Aarushi’s body was found.

Here are some of the key developments during the trial that could impact the court’s decision.

The first dramatic twist in came when a key prosecution witness Bharti Mandal, who worked as a maid with the Talwars, told the court that she had been tutored by the CBI on what to say in court.

Mandal was the first person to arrive at the Talwars’ residence on the morning of May 16, the day Aarushi was found murdered. Her tes-timony is crucial to the prosecution’s ‘last seen’ theory, the critical aspect being whether or not the door to the Talwars’ residence was locked from outside when she arrived.

With her open declaration in court that she had been told what to say, her deposition insinuat-ing that the Talwars only pretended to be locked in when she arrived around 6 am on 16 May stood discredited. So, if the house was indeed locked from outside when she arrived, it raises a big question mark on the prosecution’s case ruling out the role of outsiders.

Two, an important revelation made during the trial, one that could work strongly against the defence while bolstering the prosecution’s circumstantial evidence theory, came during the deposition of former police officer KK Gautam.



Gautam told the judge that he was asked by his eye-doctor Sushil Chaudhary, at the behest of Rajesh’s brother Dinesh, to use his (Gautam’s) influence to make sure that ‘rape’ was not men-tioned in the post-mortem report. This, the prosecution could argue, proves that the ac-cused attempted to interfere with the investiga-tion.

An important aspect to the prosecution’s cir-cumstantial evidence theory will be the be-haviour of the accused on the morning that the body was discovered. Here, the prosecu-tion could argue that the testimony of two of Rajesh’s former colleagues Rohit Kochhar and Rajiv Varshney prove that Rajesh’s behaviour was suspicious.

Varshney and Kochhar in their respective state-ments told the court that they had noticed blood stains on the stairs leading up to the terrace and on the terrace door as well. Varshney told the court that he saw Rajesh go “towards staircase and immediately returned and went inside the house”. Kochhar testified that when a policeman asked Rajesh for the key to open the terrace door, “Rajesh went into the house and did not come out for a long time.”

Three, the opinion of Sunil Dohre, the doctor who performed the post-mortem on Aarushi’s body, will be critical. His professional opinion was that the v-shaped injury on the victim’s head could have been caused by a golf club and that the slit on her throat was made by ‘surgi-cally trained person’ using a sharp-edged light instrument such as a scalpel. The prosecution will argue that this represents strong circum-stantial evidence against the defence.

Dohre went on to make certain observations on the state in which he found the private parts of the deceased teenager. While the post-mortem report by Dohare recorded ‘no abnormal activi-ty’, he told the court that it appeared to him that Aarushi’s private parts had been ‘manipulated’ and that the vaginal cavity was dilated. Asked by the defence why he had not recorded his find-ing in the post-mortem report, Dohre said these were his ‘subjective findings’ and therefore not recorded.

To counter the prosecution’s expert opinion, the

defence produced its own expert R K Sharma, former head of forensic science at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Sharma told the court that the hair-line fractures found on the bodies of Aarushi and Hemraj could not have been inflicted by a golf club. A golf club, he said, would cause ‘depressed fractures’ not ‘hair-line fractures’.

Disagreeing with Dohre’s opinion that a scalpel could have been used to the make the slit on the throat, Sharma told the court that Aarushi's post mortem report mentioned ‘sliced carotid artery’ and that it would be difficult to slit an artery which is deep inside the neck using a scalpel.

Sharma’s opinion that a khukri, a Nepalese knife, could have been used to slit the throat of the victims could help the defence’s case. A khukri was recovered from one of the initial suspects in the case Krishna Thadarai, Rajesh’s compounder at the clinic. Krishna along with Vijay Mandal (domestic help of one of the neighbours) and Raj Kumar (domestic help of the Durranis, family friends of the Talwars who lived in the neighbourhood) had been arrested by the CBI but were subsequently released for lack of evidence.

Which expert opinion the court will rely on, however, remains to be seen.

Four, a crucial testimony that could serve the defence’s case is that of CBI officer MS Fartiyal. A prosecution witness, Fartiyal told the court that three initial suspects - Thadarai, Mandal and Kumar - had admitted to the CBI that they had committed the crime.

Will this be the defence big breakthrough that could provide the court with reasonable doubt of a third party involvement? Fartiyal was part of the first CBI team headed by Arun Kumar that investigated the case for the first 15 months. The investigation was then hand-ed over to another team headed by Neelabh Kishore in September 2009.

Five, a big gap in the prosecution’s case is that no male DNA was found in Aarushi’s room. This was borne out in the forensic expert’s testimony and the CBI has admitted as much in its closure



report. This calls into question the basis for the CBI’s theory that Hemraj was killed in Aarushi’s room. (In the CBI’s closure report, first on the list of ‘major shortcomings in evidence’ was that “no blood of Hemraj was found on the bed sheet and pillow of Aasushi. There is no evidence to prove that Hemraj was killed in the room of Aarushi.”)

Six, the opinion of a London-based DNA expert could weigh in favour of the defence contention that there is no forensic evidence implicating the Talwars.

In his testimony, defence witness Andrei Semi-khodskii told the court that forensic expert pro-duced by the CBI B K Mahapatra’s DNA reports had not been prepared as per standards of the international forensic community and that the forensic expert had “not connected the accused with the crime in any DNA report.”

Seven, the most sensational deposition of all during the trial was of that of CBI officer A G L Kaul who led the investigation by the second CBI team. He told the court that the decision to file a closure report was not his but that of his senior Neelabh Kishore. He told the judge that while he was in favour of filing a chargesheet naming Rajesh, Nupur, Dinesh Talwar and Sushil Chaudhary, Kishore was of the opinion was that there was not enough evidence against them and that the case be closed.

He also told the judge that while he wanted to arrest Nupur Talwar, he was denied permission

to do so by his superior Kishore.

Eight, the report of the Hyderabad-based Cen-tre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) to which the CBI had sent samples seized during investigation showed that Hem-raj’s blood had been found on a pillow recov-ered from the Krishna’s room. This was the single-most crucial piece of forensic evidence in the defence’s favour. The CBI, however, called it a ‘typographical error’.SPR Prasad, a scientist from CDFD, told the court that he had received a letter from the CBI in March 2010 seeking a clarification “as it seemed that there was a mistake.” Prasad told the judge that on checking, it was found that there was “a problem in the chronology of items that were documented and their code numbers had been mixed up.”

The 15-month-long trial has seen Talwars re-peatedly come up against courts rejecting their petitions to gain access to evidence that could help their defence and pleas to put on record evidence that they believe could point towards the involvement of outsiders. Their petitions and repeated appeals in higher courts have, however, on many occasions led to strong re-bukes by judges for using delay tactics.

Most recently, the Supreme Court while dis-missing (on October 8) their plea to put on record brain mapping, narco-analysis and poly-graph reports of Thadarai, Mandal and Kumar, observed that the Talwars were “adopting dila-tory tactics at every moment”.



Aarushi-Hemraj trial: CBI focusses on ‘conduct’ of Talwars as key evidence

In their concluding arguments in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder trial, the prosecution chose to dwell on the conduct of accused Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the

immediate aftermath of the murders as the main circumstantial evidence pointing to their alleged guilt.


I n their concluding arguments in the Aa-rushi-Hemraj murder trial, the prosecution chose to dwell on the conduct of accused

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the immediate af-termath of the murders as the main circumstan-tial evidence pointing to their alleged guilt.

The Talwars, both dentists, are on trial for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj. Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found murdered in her apartment in Noida on May 16, 2008. A day later, the body of Hemraj was discovered on the terrace of the three-sto-rey apartment. Rajesh and Nupur were in the house on the night the crime was committed.

Today, its third day of arguments, the prosecu-tion told the court that prosecution witness K K Gautam, a retired superintendent of Uttar Pradesh police, was 'used' by the accused to 'dis-cover' Hemraj's body on the terrace.

Gautam was brought to the Talwars' residence a day after Aarushi's body was found by a com-mon acquaintance, Sushil Chaudhary. (Chaud-

hary, Gautam's eye doctor, was a friend of Rajesh's brother Dinesh)

As per the CBI's closure report, it was at the instance of Gautam that the Noida Police broke open the terrace door and found Hemraj's putri-fied body.

The prosecution's case, which is built entirely on circumstantial evidence, is that Hemraj was killed in Aarushi's room and that his body then dragged by the Talwars over the stairs and dumped on the terrace.

Gautam, the former cop, has emerged as the key witness for the prosecution, which relied heavily on his testimony in its final arguments.

The prosecution, during the last hearing, ar-gued that Gautam's statement to the court that Chaudhary had asked him (given his position as a former UP cop) at the instance of Dinesh to ensure that the word 'rape' was not mentioned in Aarushi's post-mortem, was proof that the Talwars had tried to interfere with investigation and mislead the Noida police.

It is the prosecution's case that Rajesh had tried to mislead the investigation from day one by lodging a complaint naming Hemraj as the suspect on the morning that Aarushi's body was discovered.

At an earlier hearing, the prosecution had argued that the language in FIR (use of past tense) indicated that the Rajesh was aware that Hemraj was dead.

Today, continuing to argue that the Talwars



tried to mislead the police even after Hemraj's body was discovered, the prosecution told the court that Rajesh had refused to identify the body, a claim the defence has contested. Relying on witness statements, the prosecution argued that body of Hemraj was not in such a state that it could not be identified.

Further, the prosecution told the court that by re-painting the wooden partition (that formed part of the common wall between Aarushi's room and that of her parent's) in the same colour as the rest of the wall and having the grill door at the entrance removed, the accused had tried to alter the scene of crime.

The prosecution, however, failed to mention that the house was painted one-and-a-half years after the murders were committed and that the CBI had given the Talwars permission to do so.

The prosecution in its final arguments also argued that the Talwars had destroyed evidence,

relying largely on statements of the police offic-ers who were first to arrive at the crime scene and that of the doctor who performed the post-mortem on Aarushi's body.

The prosecutors argued that the bedroom where Aarushi's body was found was "dressed up" and that her body had been "cleaned".

Finally, invoking the Evidence Act, the pros-ecution told the court that the onus was on the accused to reveal information only they could be privy to, given the circumstances, to prove they did not commit the murders. (As per Section 106 of the Evidence Act, the burden of proving a fact that is especially within the knowledge of the accused is on him. For example, if 'A' is charged with travelling on a railway without a ticket, the burden of proving that he had a ticket is on him).

Defence will begin final arguments tomorrow (October 18).



Aarushi-Hemraj trial: CBI’s unending quest for the murder weapon

The kitchen knife is the latest weapon to make its way into the CBI’s changing theory of what killed Aarushi

and Hemraj on the night of May 16-17, 2008.


N ew Delhi: The kitchen knife is the latest weapon to make its way into the CBI's changing theory of what killed Aarushi

and Hemraj on the night of May 16-17, 2008. In a development that has stunned the defence, the prosecution in its final arguments sprung yet another surprise by naming 'kitchen knife' as a possible weapon that could have been used to slit the throats of Aarushi and Hemraj.

The other fatal injury, found on the head of the victims, the CBI has claimed was caused by a golf club. On what caused the slit on the neck of the victims, the CBI in its concluding argu-ments, while choosing to keep it open-ended (scalpel or sharp-edged weapon) has for first time in five years since murders were commit-ted mentioned the possible use of a 'kitchen knife'.

At no stage in the trial has any expert witness mentioned the use of kitchen knife as murder weapon. The CBI's quest for the murder weapon began with a khukri (a Nepalese knife that was recovered from one of the initial suspects) then turned to a 'surgical instrument' such as 'scal-

pel' (inspired by the profession of the Talwars who are dentists) and finally now to a "scalpel or kitchen knife."

When asked what the basis for this latest revela-tion was, the prosecution chose to partly deny and partly explain their claim by insisting that the weapon used was 'sharp-edged weapon' which could have been a ' kitchen knife'.

This improvement in the CBI's arguments comes after the defence witness R K Sharma, former head of forensic science at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, in his testimony disagreed with opinion of prosecution wit-ness Sunil Dohre (the doctor who performed post-mortem on Aasrushi's body) that a scalpel could have been used to the make the slit on the throat.

Sharma had told the court that Aarushi’s post mortem report mentioned ‘sliced carotid artery’ and that it would be difficult to slit an artery which is deep inside the neck using a scalpel. Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are on trial for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found mur-dered in her apartment in Noida on May 16, 2008. A day later, the body of Hemraj was discovered on the terrace of the three-storey apartment. Rajesh and Nupur were in the house on the night the crime was committed. The Aarushi-Hemraj trial, which began a little over a year ago, is in its final stage. The prosecution concluded its arguments on Thursday. Defence will begin its final arguments on Monday (Octo-ber 21).



What the CBI told court



CBI tells court Talwars killed Aarushi, Hemraj

CBI counsel R K Saini made the allegation before Special Judge Shyam Lal during his argument on

framing of charges against Talwars for their alleged roles in the sensational killings of their daughter

and domestic aide.

PTI, May 22, 2012

G haziabad: The CBI told a special court here that dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar themselves killed their

daughter Aarushi and domestic aide Hemraj on May 15-16, 2008 night in their Noida flat.

CBI counsel R K Saini made the allegation be-fore Special Judge Shyam Lal during his argu-ment on framing of charges against Talwars for their alleged roles in the sensational killings of their daughter and domestic aide.

Quoting from the postmortem report of the two, Saini said Talwars killed them in quick succes-sion one after one as there was not much gap between the timings of their deaths. He accused Talwar of slitting Aarushi throat to kill her.

Prosecution counsel Saini also accused Talwars of trying to destroy the evidence in the twin murder case saying that after the murder they washed the walls of Aarushi's room to clean the blood splattered on them.

They also changed Aarushi's bed sheet after the murder, he said adding that they also tried to get Aarushi's postmortem report changed.

Saini told the court that the agency has gathered over 6,000 pages of documentary evidence in the form of statements of various people, in-cluding Talwars' neighbours and Uttar Pradesh police officials, who initially investigated the case, to prove Talwars' culpability in the crime.

Saini also said after committing the crime, Talwars even wanted to escape and they did not cooperate with the CBI during the investigation. The court adjourned the case for tomorrow, slating the hearing for Talwars to begin their ar-guments against the framing of charges against them.

Aarushi was found murdered in her bedroom in her Noida flat on May 16, 2008, while Hemraj's body was found on terrace the next day. While Rajesh Talwar is currently out on bail, his wife Nupur Talwar has been lodged in Dasna jail for her alleged role in the crime.



Talwars found Aarushi, Hemraj in compromising position: CBI

The CBI today told a special court here that Rajesh and Nupur Talwar killed their daughter Aarushi and

domestic help Hemraj in a fit of rage after finding them in a compromising position, a claim strongly

refuted by the dentist couple.

PTI, May 23, 2012

G haziabad: The CBI today told a special court here that Rajesh and Nupur Tal-war killed their daughter Aarushi and

domestic help Hemraj in a fit of rage after find-ing them in a compromising position, a claim strongly refuted by the dentist couple.

The Talwars contested CBI's claim, saying that sex is no big deal in elite society and does not entail murders. Resuming its argument on framing of charges in the May 2008 twin mur-der case, CBI counsel RK Saini told Special Judge Shyam Lal that on the fateful day Talwars had returned home late in the evening and not finding Aarushi and Hemraj in the living room went to their daughter's room.

Saini said the room was locked from inside but Talwars opened it from outside with another key, found their daughter and Hemraj in a com-promising position and were infuriated.

An angry Talwar picked up a golf club and repeatedly hit Hemraj and his daughter with it, Saini said. As the two fell unconscious, Talwars slit their throat with a surgical blade, a work done with the precision expected of experts like them, he said.

Nupur, however, personally, dismissed the charge saying that they belonged to an elite class of society where one does not kill anyone for indulging in sexual acts. She added that they dearly loved their daughter and there was no question of killing her even after finding her in a compromising position as the matter could have been resolved.

Refuting CBI's allegations, Talwars' counsel said the couple loved Aarushi dearly and they had given her a costly camera as a gift for her birth-day, which was towards the end of the month and there was no way they could have killed their only daughter for any reason.

It was Hemraj, who killed Aarushi for com-mitting theft in the house, the counsel claimed adding, however, that it was not clear as to who killed Hemraj and the CBI miserably failed in solving the case.

Talwars' counsel also sought to refute the CBI's allegation that they had cleaned private parts of the slain teenager to wipe off the evidence of her alleged sexual intercourse.

The Noida government hospital doctor, who conducted Aarushi's autopsy, did not mention it in his report anywhere, said the counsel adding that the doctor, however, later told the CBI that the girl's private parts had been cleaned.



He questioned as to why the doctor did not mention this fact in the post mortem report itself.

Prosecution counsel Saini, however, stuck to his guns and also quoted testimonies of another domestic aide Bharti and the colony watchman to substantiate its allegations that the dentist couple was behind the murder.

Saini quoted Bharti, who said when she went to Talwars house on 16 May morning the door was locked from outside and Nupur Talwar dropped the key from the first floor for her to open it and enter the house. She said she did not find Hem-raj inside the house.

Saini also quoted the guard of the colony who

said that no one went to Talwars' house at night and there was no question of any outsider enter-ing the house to commit the crime.

Saini also said that after murdering Hemraj, the Talwars dragged his body to the terrace where they locked it up. The prosecution counsel reiterated the charges that they washed walls of Aarushi room to wipe blood stains off them and changed her bed sheet. Aarushi was found murdered in her bedroom on 16 May, 2008 with her throat slit. Hemraj's body was found in the terrace the next day.

While Aarushi's father Rajesh Talwar is pres-ently out on bail, her mother Nupur is presently lodged in Dasna jail.



No one except her parents could have killed Aarushi: CBI

Investigating officer AGL Kaul told the special CBI court that the double murder could have been

committed only by the Talwars.

FP Staff Apr 17, 2013

I nvestigations in the Aarushi Talwar-Hem-raj double murder case yet again points to the Talwars--Rajesh and Nupur Talwar for

the murder of their 14-yar-old daughter.

Appearing as a prosecution witness in a Ghaz-iabad court where dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are being tried for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hem-raj, the CBI investigating officer has said it was not possible for anyone but the Talwar's to have committed the crime.

Investigating officer AGL Kaul told the special CBI court that the double murder could have been committed only by the Talwars. The in-vestigating officers also told the court that no one from outside could have come into the flat and committed the crime, as there was only one entry and exit.

So far 39 witnesses have deposed before the court. The CBI will tell the court tomorrow whether it will produce any more witnesses for the prosecution.

Last week, an official of the Gujarat Forensic Science University (GFSU) had also told the court that the crime was possibly committed using a golf club and surgical knife, and that no outsider except the Talwar couple was involved in the murder.

While the injury on their heads was that of something like a golf club, the neck wounds were inflicted using a sharp-edged thing like a surgical knife, GFSU Director Mohendra Singh Dahiya told the court.

The injury marks indicated that their throats were slit after the murder, he added.

"I don't know who was attacked first, but they were certainly killed on Aarushi's bed. A golf club, or any similar thing like a hockey stick, was used for the murder, after which their throats were slit using some sharp-edged thing like a surgical knife," he had told the court.

The two were murdered after being found in a compromising position in Aarushi's room, he told the court.

A security guard of Talwars' building had also told the special CBI court that he had seen no "outsider" on the fateful night, the prosecutors said.

After killing Hemraj, the murderers took his body on the terrace in a bed sheet, during the course of which one of them lost control, lead-ing to blood-stained hand marks on the wall along the terrace door.

The GFSU joined the investigations after being approached by CBI in October 2009.

14-year-old Aarushi was found dead at her Noida residence on 16 May, 2008. A day later, their domestic help Hemraj's body was also found in the terrace of their house.

The CBI, in its closure report, said that Aa-rushi's parents were the one and only suspects in the double murder case. While her Rajesh father succeeded in getting bail, her mother Nu-pur, remains in Dasna jail in Gurgaon. She was sent to jail on 30 April, 2012.



‘Rajesh Talwar found Aarushi, Hemraj in objectionable position, killed them’

The CBI on Tuesday said that dentist Rajesh Talwar had found his daughter and domestic servant in an

“objectionable position” and killed them using his golf stick and a sharp-edged weapon.

PTI, Apr 24, 2013

G haziabad: The CBI on Tuesday said that dentist Rajesh Talwar had found his daughter and domestic servant in an

"objectionable position" and killed them using his golf stick and a sharp-edged weapon.

Deposing during cross examination in a special court in Ghaziabad, CBI Additional SP AGL Kaul, who led the second probe team, went into the motive behind the sensational double mur-der of 14-year old Aarushi and domestic servant Hemraj at the Noida residence of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar on the intervening night of May 15-16, 2008.

Kaul said according to his investigation Rajesh Talwar was awake in his room at 12 midnight whereas the time of murders, according to post-mortem report, is between 12 and 1 am.

The officer claimed that according to his probe Hemraj was attacked in Aarushi's room on her bed, taken to the roof and dragged to a corner where his throat was slit.

Explaining the sequence of events which took

place on the fateful night, Kaul said Rajesh heard some noise and went to Hemraj's room but did not find him there.

"There were two golf sticks lying in Hemraj's room one of which Rajesh Talwar picked up. He heard a noise from the room of Aarushi. The room door was not locked and was just shut. He opened the door and found Aarushi and Hem-raj were in objectionable position on the bed of Aarushi," Kaul said in his testimony.

Kaul said finding them in such a position, Rajesh Talwar hit Hemraj's head with a golf stick. By the time he gave a second blow the servant's head moved from the position and the stick hit Aarushi on her forehead.

He said when golf sticks were seized the stick heads were not sealed separately.

"The V or U shaped injury on Aarushi's fore-head could have been caused by the use of golf stick head," he said.

The officer said the noise generated in the proc-ess awoke Nupur Talwar who rushed to Aa-rushi's room.

"By the time the injured Hemraj had fallen from the bed. Both checked the pulse of Aarushi and found her near-dead which scared them and planned that the servant should be executed so that no one comes to know about the incident," Kaul said before the court.

He said both decided to hide the body of Hem-raj and dispose it off on getting suitable oppor-tunity.



The duo wrapped Hemraj's body in a bed-sheet and dragged him to terrace where they slit his throat, covering the body with a cooler panel, Kaul said.

He said after coming to the room, they dressed up the crime scene by arranging the bedsheet and toys.

They slit Aarushi's throat, to ensure that wounds on Hemraj and their daughter look similar, and Nupur cleaned her private parts, he said.

Giving details of his findings, the officer said the dentist couple cleaned blood stains, disturbed the router, collected all the clothes which were used to clean blood and also the small sharp edged weapon used in the killing with an inten-tion to dispose them off.

"They cleaned the golf stick which was used in the murder and hid it in the loft of Aarushi's bedroom. They locked the door of Aarushi's room from outside. They locked the outermost door from inside and wooden door from outside and entered the flat through Hemraj's room, the door of which opened between these two entry door," he said.

Both waited for their maid Bharti to come while Rajesh kept drinking liquor all this time.

The officer said once Bharti came, Nupur asked where is Hemraj as the wooden door was locked by them from outside.

"She threw the key towards Bharti from the bal-cony which can be approached from the back-side of Aarushi's room...When Bharti came up she found Talwars crying and saying 'see what Hemraj has done?'" he said.

On being questioned by defence about forensic reports that Hemraj's DNA was found from a purple pillow recovered from the residence of Krishna, who was a suspect in the initial probe done by CBI, Kaul said that was the result of typing error in the CFSL report.

"I cannot give any specific reason which made me believe that there was a typing error in the report. It is wrong to say that I am intention-ally not telling the reasons on the basis of which I deduced that there was a typing error in the report," Kaul said.

He said he had written to Director, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), which conducted DNA test, seeking explanation for the alleged error.

"I had written that I feel that description of pur-ple coloured pillow cover recovered from Krish-na's room and pillow recovered from Hemraj were inter-changed," he said.



What the Talwars said



Was asleep when Aarushi, Hemraj were murdered: Rajesh Talwar tells court

Dentist Rajesh Talwar today claimed in the court that he was asleep on the fateful night when his daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj were murdered

and internet activity recorded from his room might not be correct.

PTI, May 20, 2013

G haziabad: Dentist Rajesh Talwar today claimed in the court that he was asleep on the fateful night when his daughter

Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj were mur-dered and internet activity recorded from his room might not be correct.

Talwar's statement is being recorded under section 313 of CrPC where the judge poses questions directly to the accused to explain his version of the circumstances.

So far Special CBI Judge S Lal has posed over 200 questions to Talwar in which he is given a chance to put forward his defence, Talwar's counsel Manoj Sisodia told reporters here.

Talwar was today asked about the recurrent in-ternet activity recorded from his router on May 15 night when the murders took place. CBI had claimed that he had used the internet at regular intervals which show he was awake and knew

about happenings in Aarushi's room.

Talwar told court today that he was asleep after 11.30 pm and did not use internet. Sisodia claimed that router was showing activity on 16 May between 6 AM to 1 PM as well after all the police and investigators had reached crime scene and the computers were switched off.

The router activity on May 16 shows that there was error in its recording hence it cannot be claimed since internet activity was there so Dr Talwar would have been awake, Sisodia told PTI, adding that he did not know whether Tal-war explained these details to the court or not.

CBI had presented an Airtel Executive as its witness to buttress its claim that internet activ-ity was recorded on May 15 which belies Tal-wars claim that he was asleep and did not know about happenings in Aarushi's adjoining room.

Talwar was also asked about post-mortem conducted on the body of Hemraj where CBI claimed that his swollen private parts indicated that the servant was indulging or about to in-dulge in sex just before his death.

Raj had claimed that he had not formed any opinion about swollen parts of the servant on the day of postmorten as he had thought he would tell reasons when asked about it. He had also agreed with the defence counsel's view that swelling could also be result of decomposition of the body.



Even if I am acquitted, my fight for justice will continue: Rajesh Talwar

Rajesh and his wife Nupur are on trial for the murder of their teenage daughter Aarushi and

domestic help Hemraj.


A year and four months after trial began, a special CBI court in Ghaziabad is expect-ed to deliver its verdict in the Aarushi-

Hemraj murder case next month.

During the trial, the Talwars have often been at the receiving end of rejections and dismissals by courts of their pleas to be permitted access to CBI's investigative reports, that they've argued point to the involvement of outsiders.

'Delay tactics' has been the common theme of dismissal orders by the courts, the Supreme Court included, despite arguments by Talwars' defence lawyers that "jurisprudence of this country entitles me to alternative hypothesis on the basis of the material that is available with the investigating agency."

Describing the predicament they find them-selves as "surreal", Rajesh Talwar said, "If I was a criminal would I be asking the investigating

agencies to use international forensic proce-dures to conduct DNA tests?"

Rajesh and his wife Nupur are on trial for the murder of their teenage daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

"Even they acquit me, I am not going to let this go. I am going to make sure that those who did this to my child are brought to justice. I owe it to Aarushi," Rajesh said.

While he has resumed his dental practice, life is far from normal for the Talwars.

"I can't even step out of my car at night without someone staring and pointing fingers at me... Can anyone give me my life back?" he said.

By the CBI's own admission there is no forensic evidence that connects the couple to the mur-ders.Relying entirely on circumstantial evidence and the "last seen theory", the prosecution has argued that the Talwars tried to "mislead" the investigation and that they "destroyed" evi-dence.

The defence began its final arguments on Thurs-day. (Read full report here)

On 16 May, 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi was found murdered in her apartment in Noida. A day later, the body of domestic help Hemraj was discovered on the terrace of the three-storey apartment.


http://www.firstpost.com/india/aarushi-case-defence-questions-cbis-sudden-provocation-murder-theory-1192613.html


Aarushi-Hemraj case: ‘Talwars battled with their hands tied’

‘Brave and stoic’ is how close friends describe Rajesh and Nupur Talwar as the couple wait for the highly anticipated verdict in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder

case by a special CBI court on the Monday. The Talwars stand accused of committing the murders.

Pallavi Polanki, Nov 25, 2013

N ew Delhi: 'Brave and stoic' is how close friends describe Rajesh and Nupur Talwar as the couple wait for the highly

anticipated verdict in the Aarushi-Hemraj mur-der case by a special CBI court on the Monday. The Talwars stand accused of committing the murders.

It is a year and four months since the trial began in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, and more than five years since Aarushi, teenage daughter of the Talwars, and Hemraj, their domestic help, were found murdered at their Noida residence.

By the prosecution’s own admission, there is no material evidence, forensic or otherwise, that implicates the Talwars of committing the murders. Built on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution’s case relies on the ‘last seen theory’ suggesting that the victims were last seen alive with the accused.

The defence has challenged the CBI’s theory ar-guing that there were not four but seven people

in the house on the night the crime was com-mitted and has questioned the very basis of the CBI’s case that ‘sudden and grave provocation’is what led to the murders. (Read full report here)

“Even if they acquit me, I am not going to let this go. I am going to make sure that those who did this to my child are brought to justice. I owe it to Aarushi,” Rajesh Talwar told Firstpost in a recent interview. (Read full report here.)

Anxious at what the verdict will bring, friends of Talwars say the legal ordeal of the past year has left them deeply disillusioned and angry.

“Whatever they appealed for was rejected by the courts at every stage. When they asked for ad-ditional witnesses, courts denied them permis-sion. Their requests for forensic reports were also denied. They had to battle it out with their hands tied,” says Masooma Ranalvi, a family friend of the Talwars.

Reacting to adverse observations bythe courts, the Supreme Court included, accusing the Tal-wars of using ‘delay tactics’, Ranalvi said, “They were unfairly accused of delaying the trial. This has been one of the fastest trials that have taken place. In fact, it was the investigating agencies that took four years to complete their investiga-tion. So why are the parents being accused of delaying the process. This is something very strange. If asking for documents, for witnesses is being termed as delay, it is ridiculous.”

Ranalvi’s daughter was Aarushi’s classmate and friend.



“It is beyond me how they’ve withstood so much criticism, so much hatred directed at them, the negative vibes. The tragedy is that their grief has never been visible. The fact of the matter is they have never been able to mourn the death of their child…The day their daughter died, life almost ended for both of them. For them, she was their life. They are no longer part of us, no longer a part of this society. The life they have been living is a life that normal people cannot understand,” says Ranalvi.

Senior lawyer Rebecca John, who leadsthe Talwars’ defence team, describes the experience as having been ‘exacting’. “We’ve seen first-stand how hard it is on people who are facing it, in terms of the losses they have suffered, their personal loss, loss of reputation, dignity, liveli-hood. It has been a very difficult trial for us,” says John.

Describing the Talwars as ‘extremely brave and stoic’, John says, it is their sense of duty to Aa-rushi that has kept them going.

Ranalvi agrees. Having stood by them and supported them through the media frenzy, the controversial police investigation, the arrests, the U-turn by the CBI and the court’s decision ordering them to stand trial for the murders, Ranalvi says it was their single-minded pursuit for justice thatsaw them through this ordeal.

“They have been very stoic, they’ve put up a good fight. They were totally dedicated. It was a question of saving the memory of their child, it was a question of clearing their name… the passion and dedication with which they have put into this trial, I only hope it will bear some result,” says Ranalvi.

Appealing to the media to ‘keep calm’, John says, “Which ever the verdict goes, it is a terrible tragedy that has happened. I would expect the media to take it within the boundaries of bal-ance and not to convert it into a circus. It has been a circus for five years. I would want the media to stay calm, to objectively analyse what has happened rather than be ruled by percep-tion.”



Aarushi-Hemraj murder case: Talwars say CBI tampered with evidence

The lawyer representing the Talwars, the parents accused in the 2008 murder of 14-year-old Aarushi in

Noida, argued in the CBI court on Monday that the probe agency manipulated evidence it

provided in court.

IANS, Nov 11, 2013

G haziabad: The lawyer representing the Talwars, the parents accused in the 2008 murder of 14-year-old Aarushi

in Noida, argued in the CBI court on Monday that the probe agency manipulated evidence it provided in court.

In their defence, the Talwars' lawyer Satyaketu Singh submitted that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) manipulated the 'tampered' report of the CDFD (Central DNA and Forensic Department), Hyderabad, regarding the pil-low cover recovered from the room of Krishna, the Nepalese compounder of the dentist Rajesh Talwar, the father of the murdered girl.

The defence lawyer said in 2011, it was claimed before the Allahabad High Court that in 2009, the CDFD had reported the pillow cover recov-ered from Krishna's room contained Hemraj's blood, and so evidence showed Krishna was involved in the crime.

But the CBI sought a clarification, after two years, from scientist SR Prasad of the CDFD, and it was found that the mention of Krishna was a "typographic" mistake. The lawyer point-ed out, however, if it was a typographic error, then it had occurred at least 10 times in the report submitted to the court.

An FIR was registered against the scientist at a Hyderabad police station under Sections 420 (cheating) and 467 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code.

The lawyer argued that the CBI tampered with

a seized article of evidence, a golf club, while it was in its custody.

He said that the CBI, in 2013, presented one independent witness named Laxman before the court, and that witness admitted that the Talwars' driver, Umesh, had identified the golf sticks in August 2010. The entire stock of golf sticks was seized by the CBI in 2009.

The lawyer argued that the CBI tampered with the seal on objects taken as evidence, and plant-ed one golf stick to make it appear as a weapon of murder.

The lawyer also said that while the CBI was claiming it had not photographed the clothes of the accused, it presented photographs of the gown of Nupur Talwar, also a dentist, as evi-dence, saying it contained no blood stains.

The lawyer pointed to these contradictions, and claimed they were happening because of ma-nipulation of evidence.

The next hearing of the case has been fixed for 12 November 2013.

The special CBI court Judge S Lal asked the defence to make haste in submitting their final arguments.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents' Noida residence 16 May, 2008. The body of Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house.



Support for the Talwars



Images: 4 years since Aarushi Talwar’s death, no headway yet

Aarushi Talwar was found murdered at their Noida residence on 16 May, 2008. Domestic help Hemraj was found murdered a day later. Screen grab/ Ibnlive

Aarushi's parents, Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, who are facing trial in the double murder case. Screen grab/ Ibnlive



Aarushi Talwar's classmates gather with placards and lighted candles around her picture during a rally in New Delhi on 20 June, 2008, demanding a proper inquiry into her death. The case was transferred from the UP police to the CBI. AFP

Rajesh Talwar, father of murdered teenager Aarushi, holds his head, after being attacked outside the Ghaziabad court as he was attending a hearing, in Ghaziabad on 25 January, 2011. He had been arrested earlier by the UP police but was subsequently released on bail. AFP



The Aarushi Talwar case: The insider’s perspective

Three members of the crew, including the director, cameraman and associate director, had visited the

mall barely an hour before the attacks.

FP Staff Feb 8, 2013

T here have been reams of print and televi-sion footage devoted to the sensational Aarushi Talwar murder case of 2008.

The murder of the teenager and domestic help Hemraj has been a topic of discussion across homes, television studios, reports and editorials with each person analysing an aspect of the case to reach a conclusion that seems either conven-ient or obvious to them.

In a long compelling report in the Canadian publication, The Star Shree Paradkar describes the situation in the Talwar household since the traumatic incident in 2008. But unlike other reporters, Paradkar is a cousin of Aarushi's mother, Nupur, which helps provide insight into how how much the extended family has been af-fected by the gruesome incident and its equally dramatic fallout.

A grandmother, who doted on her granddaugh-ter by cooking her dishes of her choice, but now can't bear to cook any more. A grandfather

who is a former war veteran and wishes that he wasn't born in this country. A friend, who can't wait to leave the country, and another who has joined the media to correct what she sees as a faulty covering of the case.

When we’re going through photos for this story, my aunt gazes at forgotten images, transported to happier times.

“Look at this one,” she says in Marathi — our mother tongue — pointing to a photo of toddler Aarushi sitting in a vegetable basket. “Such an imp, my baby.”

And then, softly: “She was still little, you know. She wouldn’t even have comprehended these people were killing her.” Tears. “It must have happened so quickly, she wouldn’t have felt any pain. Right?”

The article analyses the entire incident from the perspective of the Talwar family, highlighting the now well known flip flops in the case that re-sulted in both parents being arrested and subse-quently released on bail, the arrest of three oth-ers but them being let off due to lack of evidence and the toll it has exacted on an unit that earlier seemed to be the ideal Indian family.

No matter how much you may have read and no matter what your opinion on the case, the arti-cle with the accompanying video offers a fresh perspective on what a long-drawn out trial and a trial by media can take on a family.

Read the Star article here...


http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/01/26/aarushi_talwar_murder_a_look_at_one_of_indias_most_notorious_cases.html


‘Talwars living in a bubble of sorrow’Masooma Ranalvi, a close friends of the Talwars, is helping them rectify their error of not interacting the

media about the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

Pallavi Polanki Jun 11, 2012

“U nfolding of a horror story” is how Masooma Ranalvi, a close friend of the Talwars, describes the last four

years since teenager Aarushi Talwar and Nepali domestic help Hemraj were found murdered. It is the day after the crushing Supreme Court verdict that rejected Nupur Talwar’s plea to dis-miss the murder trial and order a fresh investi-gation into the case.

Nupur and her husband Rajesh Talwar have been charged by a special CBI court of the dou-ble murder and of destroying evidence. The trial began on 8 June.

For Masooma, whose daughter Fiza was Aa-rushi’s friend at school, the irreconcilability be-tween Talwars she knows and the circumstances they find themselves in makes her wonder how things could have gone so horribly wrong for a couple she describes as “gentle, soft-spoken and always ready to help.”

Looking back, Masooma says, there are many things she wishes they had done differently. And looking forward, she has set herself the challenge of righting one hugely costly mistake

the Talwars made - ignoring the media. The re-sult, to quote what one of their senior counsels told the Supreme Court, “Their lives have been destroyed by the media.”

The course correction seems to have already be-gun. For the first time, Talwars released a press statement on Thursday. It was their reaction to the Supreme Court verdict.

“People have been fed one side of the story. The real picture is something different. The focus now is on getting the support of the peo-ple through social media, through one-to-one contact. We want to tell our side of the story and make people understand,” says Masooma.

Rubbishing the recent spate of stories in the media on Nupur and her life in jail, Masooma couldn’t help laughing and said, “She is not writing a book. She is not studying law and she is not considering adopting a girl child. But it is a headline every day.”

Speaking about her recent meeting with Nupur in Dasna jail, she says: “Looking at them post this tragedy, I find that circumstances have pushed them to become strong. Between the two, Nupur is the strong one. She has a stoicism about her. And she has that spirit she is going to fight it out.”

It was the year that Aarushi was murdered that Masooma had begun to grow closer to the Tal-wars.

“It was only over the last one year of the inci-dent that I got more involved with them. Fiza and Aarushi were always friends. And it was when they were in Class VIII that I consciously started meeting some of the parents of her friends,” Masooma said.

Masooma Ranalvi, a close friend of the Talwars. Firstpost/ Pallavi Polanki



She found Nupur, she says, to be “simple, not a flashy person” and always ready to pitch in and help. “She is in a shell now and it is difficult to penetrate that. There is immense grief around both of them. It is as if they are living in a bub-ble of sorrow. They don’t talk about it or show it – there are no histrionics or tears. But it is there.”

Masooma says it their pursuit to prove their in-nocence that is keeping them going. “They are fighting. They have the resolve to prove their in-nocence. It has become a mission in their life.”

Through all the bizarre twists and turns this

case has taken, it is the Noida Police, says Masooma, that she feels most betrayed by.

“They are the biggest culprits. Had their done their job, we wouldn’t have seen this horrific twist to the story,” she said.

Asked what had led her to get involved and speak out publicly in defence of the Talwars, she says: “What is happening to the Talwars is a re-flection of the system we live in. But somewhere down the line, justice has to be done. We cannot allow this to happen. Otherwise, it will be a sad day for all of us.”



Aarushi murder case: Friends create website supporting Talwars

Friends and family of Rajesh and Nupur have started a website and a Facebook page in order to attract support for the dentist couple and highlight the shortcomings in the investigations in the case.

FP Staff Aug 8, 2012

I n what seems to be an attempt to put forward their side of the story, friends and family of the dentist couple Rajesh and Nu-

pur Talwar, who are facing trial in a Ghaziabad court for murder of their teenage daughter Aa-rushi and domestic help Hemraj, have created a site called http://justiceforaarushitalwar.org/

Appealing to readers to ‘support her (Aarushi) quest for justice’, the site dwells on the investi-gation into the double murder which has been riddled with controversies - first for its mis-handling by the Noida Police and then for the contradictory findings by two CBI teams.

The website includes background informa-tion of the case and raises a series of questions directed at the local police and CBI on various aspects of the investigation. And it's already getting visitors, some of whom are questioning the evidence presented by the police against the dentists.

“If Aarushi’s parents tampered with the crime scene, why should they have left the biggest

clues? The Ballantine’s whisky bottle with many fingerprints and both victims’ blood-stains — sitting in plain view on their dining table for the police to find the next morning?”, reads one entry.

Another entry reads, “Why were the police so lax and (did) not check for blood stains? A member of the family showed the police some suspected blood stains on the landing adja-cent to the terrace and on the terrace door ; when the police were shown this, all they said was ‘It seems no one has been here for months together.’ Whose directions were they awaiting by ignoring this evidence on day one? Did they really need to be told by the family members how to investigate?"

The initiative forms part of a broader effort by family and friends of the Talwars to use the so-cial media reach out directly to the public.

Speaking to Firstpost in an earlier interview, a close family friend of the Talwars, Masooma Ranalvi had said: “People have been fed one side of the story. The real picture is some-thing different. The focus now is on getting the support of the people through social media, through one-to-one contact. We want to tell our side of the story and make people understand,” (Read the full story here)

A Facebook page and an online newsletter have also been recently started. The facebook page titled, ‘Aaurushi Talwar: Quest for Justice’, was created in June and features posts by Aarushi’s friends and family, photos, and reactions to the ongoing trial.


http://justiceforaarushitalwar.org/

http://www.firstpost.com/india/talwars-living-in-a-bubble-of-sorrow-339283.html


Talwars find online support, a new campaign appeals to CBI’s parent ministry

After launch of a website and campaigns on facebook and twitter, the latest effort is an online signature campaign addressed to the Ministry of Personnel,

the parent ministry of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).


N ew Delhi: Rallying public support for Rajesh and Nupur Talwar — who are facing trial for the murder of their teen-

age daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hem-raj — remains a priority for friends and family of the dentist couple.

After launch of a website and campaigns on Fa-cebook and Twitter, the latest effort is an online signature campaign addressed to the Ministry of Personnel, the parent ministry of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Posted on popular online social movement platform change.org, the petition was started by Shiba Mehra, who has been following the case for the last four-and-a-half years and is known to the Talwars.

Mehra, who is based in the US, says the peti-tion is an attempt to draw the attention of the government to lapses in the investigation and to prevent such incidents from recurring.

“I genuinely feel concerned as this case raises serious questions on the agencies which are normally supposed to uphold the law. If these agencies are bent upon harassing the innocent and letting the guilty get away, whom can an ordinary law abiding citizen turn to, to get jus-tice?” says Mehra.

Asked whether there was a specific demand be-ing made to the ministry, Mehra said it was to “hold an impartial enquiry into the findings of

the CBI investigating officer who filed the clo-sure report.”

It may be recalled that in December 2010 the CBI had filed a closure report on the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case that concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to book Rajesh Tal-war for the murders. (Read report here.)

A special CBI judge, however, rejected the clo-sure report and summoned the couple to stand trial for the murders instead. Multiple efforts by the couple to challenge the trial court’s order and seek a re-investigation of the case came to naught after the Supreme Court rejected Nu-pur’s petition and ordered the dentist couple to stand trial.

The trial began at a special CBI court in Ghazia-bad in June. Read more on that here.

Given that the case is in court, what amends, if at all, does Mehra expect to be made at this point?

“It can be ensured that all available records with the CBI (including first and second team) are disclosed in the court proceedings and are not allowed to be suppressed or manipulated,” says Mehra.

Titled ‘Justice for Aarushi and Hemraj’, the pe-tition has gathered a little over 1000 signatures so far and aims to gather upto 5000 supporters. Read the petition here.


http://justiceforaarushitalwar.com/

http://www.firstpost.com/india/cbis-closure-report-does-it-hide-more-than-it-reveals-175127.html

http://www.firstpost.com/india/aarushi-hemraj-trial-more-holes-in-prosecutions-case-476445.html

http://change.org/aarushi


The social questions



Beware the middle class murderer: Why we suspect the Talwars

The Talwars maybe guilty or not, but more striking is the ease with which we’ve accepted the very

possibility of such a crime thanks to a media-fueled paranoia that has us convinced, that all “ordinary”

middle class folks are potential killers.

Lakshmi Chaudhry Jan 18, 2012

"M urder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural," proclaims the

ghost in Hamlet of his death at the hands of his brother and wife. We now live in the age of foul murders, each day brings fresh news of strange and unnatural acts. Sometimes it's the details that shock: bodies chopped into bits, stuffed into suitcases or cooked in a tandoor. In others, it's the cast of characters who grip the imagina-tion. The sexy starlet who conspires with her fiance to dispose of the body of her lover. The straying housewife who hires a contract killer. The college kids who stab some techie for jump-ing the queue at a dhaba.

Say hello to the "new criminal": nice, middle class type who may be in the next cubicle, right next door, or – worse – in your own home. These aren't reliable repeat offenders, petty criminals who graduate to greater offenses, but precocious first-timers who resemble ticking time-bombs, filled with unconscious murderous rage that can be triggered without warning, or

often sufficient cause.

To the average newspaper reader, the unfold-ing saga of the Aarushi case is just one more instance of this new "trend." The Talwars maybe guilty or not – the evidence uncovered by First-post suggests not – but more striking is the ease with which we've accepted the very possibility of such a crime: respectable, well-educated, pro-fessional parents club their only child to death in anger over an alleged liaison with a male servant – and her "lover" too boot.

It sounds crazy, even incredible and yet we don't flinch.

We now believe – rightly or otherwise – that the middle class home is no longer the safe haven of stringent morality and social repression, but a dark, unseen underworld where anything is possible. That globalisation has unleashed our voracious, unruly id, an insatiable, inner mon-ster willing to kill to satisfy an immediate need.

Or, at least, that's what the media tells us, over and again, implicitly or otherwise. There's no shortage of rapes, assault, and murders in India, but it's the middle class murderer who grabs the lion share of the headlines. Maria Susairaj, Sumit Handa, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, each comfimation of a dissolute, new world where respectable, achche khathe pithe log gone bad.

A recent Open magazine story, titled "The New Criminal," neatly summarises this hypothesis:

A fast changing society, says sociologist Patricia Uberoi, experiences what she terms “normless-



ness”, where old ways of life no longer operate. It renders the middle-class particularly vulnera-ble... When a new pathology takes hold of urban society, such as the current craze for celebra-tions, be it over a new flat, car, computer or even mobile phone, there could arise corrosive feelings such as status anxiety. “There is a dark side to it, an underbelly that is not easy to cope with: failure, frustration, dejection and rejec-tion,” says Uberoi. Left unaddressed, these can metastasise into violent urges in some cases...

It starts with a loss of fear of the law, and draws upon a kind of discontent that is typical of a society in transition, where old social norms are abandoned even though people are not yet ready for the new. Aggravated by work and re-lationship pressures, all this results in a case of raw nerves and gnawing insecurities. If some-thing snaps, it could suddenly spiral into a fit of murderous rage.

We're all potential murderers now because we want that elusive iPad. It's just a matter of re-ceiving the right cue. The materialism theory of murder sounds compelling but is so convenient-ly elastic that it can explain almost any crime, from the shopkeeper who kills a customer to the yoga teacher who chops his Israeli ex-girlfriend into bits. While Open steers clear of the Aarushi case – perhaps because they've loudly support-ed the Talwar cause – such leaps of logic lend themselves to their indictment. If we the middle class are now capable of killing anybody for any cause, why not the Talwars?

The latest India Today cover features a blood-splattered photograph of Aarushi, accompanied by the headline: The New Art of Domestic Mur-der: Hatya Shastra. The story inside amps up the sensationalism, taking the Open magazine thesis to the next level of ludicrous:

Across urban India, bedrooms have become dangerous arenas, of war, not love. The enemy is within, waiting to strike... An epidemic of domestic murders has broken out over the past five years, peaking in 2011. Police files show intimate partner violence, driven by unrequited obsessions, hidden desires, illicit relations, jealousy, or a sense of being wronged. In the midst of a busy news year, while headlines got bigger over the 2G scam, Anna Hazare's protest

or the rupee crisis, quietly, in the privacy of the home, the "ordinary" Indian was busy honing the extraordinary art of murder. Not criminals, not psychopaths, not dowry assassins or honour killers. Just friendly next-door neighbours who, until the day they killed, looked perfectly nor-mal.

For starters, where the epidemic? It may well be true that the number of middle class offend-ers has indeed ticked up, but neither story has numbers to confirm this is so. The India Today story points to a climbing rate of "crimes of pas-sion and provocation" – up from 7 percent in 2007-08 to 35 percent – where 93 percent are first-time killers, which includes everyone from "MBAs to auto drivers." The Open article is based on one study conducted on 122 "severely violent" offenders housed in Tihar. Both rely instead on a series of gruesome examples which may or may not be representative – at least of the urban middle class.

More alarming, however, is the constant under-lining of the "ordinariness" of the perpetrators. The very appearance of normalcy becomes omi-nous. Here's how the India Today story damns the Talwars, for instance:

Her parents projected the image of a happy family. "We were such a nice family," Nupur Talwar said in a television interview eight days after her daughter's death. "I always used to think I must have done something good in my last life to get such a nice family." She portrayed her husband as a doting husband ("We were about to celebrate her birthday. Rajesh told Aarushi to call as many friends, even if it were to become expensive."), maintained that she "trusted" the murdered domestic help, Hemraj, 45, and insisted that at the end of a heavy work day, it was quite possible to sleep through a murder at home with noisy ACs and fans."

The article abruptly switches in the very next paragraph to describing Pune's "own version of such a crime" where a father strangled his four children and committed suicide. The Talwars are damned by juxtaposition.

The details of their everyday, middle class life – birthday parties, sleeping with the AC on, trusted servants – acquire a peculiar, unwar-



ranted dubiousness. She says they were happy. Too happy, perhaps. It surely suggests that there must have been something terribly awry. If friends and neighbours confirm that they looked happy, that too becomes grist for sus-picion. Never mind that rumours of domestic strife would be fodder to raise the very same doubts. In the matter of happiness, the Talwars are damned if they were, and damned if they were not.

Such then is tautological reasoning of the mid-dle class murderer paradigm. All "normal," "regular," "ordinary" people now fit the profile.

What's more alarming is our eagerness to buy into this bizarro view of our world. We have swung from idealizing middle class family – denying the reality of incest, domestic violence, infidelity – to viewing it as a depraved Franken-stein. In believing the worst about the Talwars, we confirm our darkest fears about ourselves – and those around us. A thought that ought to give us pause before we join the gathering media lynchmob.

Something is indeed rotten in the state of Den-mark. But paranoia offers no cure for this rot.



Nupur Talwar and stereotypes we hold of a mother

The Aarushi-Hemraj double murder has become a collection of the many social stereotypes we hold in

our collective imagination, stereotypes magnified by the media.

Sagarika Ghose, May 9, 2012

N upur Talwar’s incarceration in Dasna jail has once again become a cause cele-bre in the media. Today the Aarushi-

Hemraj double murder has become a collection of the many social stereotypes we hold in our collective imagination, stereotypes magnified by the media. These include the relationship be-tween employer and “servant”. The class hos-tilities we have towards supposedly “upwardly mobile” people and their “elitist” connections. And the stereotypes we hold of a "mother”.

The Aarushi-Hemraj double murder is a case difficult for most Indians to swallow. In a cul-ture which mythologises the bond of mother and child, where a mother’s heart is supposed to ache if a child suffers even in a distant land, we find it difficult to accept and believe that a mother and father could sleep — “how could they actually sleep?” — while their child was being murdered in the next room. To us, this is sufficient “proof” of a moral collapse and the Talwars are already morally guilty. But is moral guilt also legal guilt? Away from the realm of moral judgements, the Aarushi Hemraj case must be brought back into the rational realm

of the law. Two teams of CBI investigators have produced totally conflicting findings. A CBI Court has jailed a suspect who was never named in the Closure Report filed by the CBI. Seeming-ly “affluent and well connected” people are on trial in a climate dominated by anti-elite social vendetta.

But the law must proceed on evidence on record and isolate itself from the clamour of street side khap panchayats. If the law ceases to be dispas-sionate, every one potentially is in danger of being convicted through moralistic disapproval and not by legally admissable evidence.

Let's assume that Nupur and Rajesh Talwar are guilty. If so, they must be convicted through a fair trial and through due process of law and not because sections of the media and public wants to see the Talwars hang. Why the thirst to see the Talwars hang? Because the camera lens has become our vision in the Arushi-Hemraj case. And the camera simply does not like Nupur Talwar. In the place of a bereaved mother, the camera sees a slim striding woman with an angular rather hard face. The camera zooms in on her expressionless eyes and notes with moral outrage that she sometimes touches and clings to her husband. This is a hateful “mother” im-age for the camera. We like our television moth-ers plump, weeping, asexual and dishevelled, without access to top lawyers or the Delhi elite. Our mothers must be objects of pity. If they are not, we become enraged. No wonder a national daily screams, “She” ate vegetables in jail, “She” read hanuman chalisa in jail, almost as if these are activities of a nameless “She”, an epithet for an evil she-devil. For the sake of justice, we must see all players in the case, the Talwars, the domestic staff, Aarushi, through the eyes of the



law and not through the eyes of the camera lens.

The media is obsessed with the rich yet is para-doxically also highly judgemental about afflu-ence. A middle class home is stereotyped as “posh”, access to known people is inevitably described as “elitist connections”, a social life inevitably described as "swinging lifestyle”. When IG Meerut Range Gurudarshan Singh held a press conference — in which he repeated-ly forgot Aarushi’s name, yet pronounced with conviction that her death was a drunken honour killing in a home which was apparently a diabol-ical circus of money, liquor and 'lifestyle' — he gave voice to many of our secret fears about the darker side of advancement.

Let's examine the other stereotypes that the Aa-rushi-Hemraj case has thrown up. Most middle class Indians suffer from guilt about “servants”. Pinning culpability on a “servant” for a crime and allowing rich well connected employers to get off scot free is a well established Indian morality play. ‘Bechaara servant par dosh daal diya”, is a syndrome that has undoubtedly often been a reality. Yet is there not some amount of middle class hypocrisy at work here? We in-sist on the innocence of the “servants” because they are the poor underdog, yet why is it that in the same breath we are prepared to believe the worst of Hemraj, that he actually had an alleged “relationship” with 14-year-old Aarushi? The first investigation team of the CBI listed Krishna (Talwar’s compounder) as a suspect. The first team of the CBI collected the forensic report which established that the blood of Hemraj was

on the pillow cover recovered from Krishna's room, but did not actually file a report, or come to any conclusion , because they were inexpli-cably changed midway through their investi-gation. The second team has now produced a certificate that this evidence was the result of a mix up.

Krishna may well be innocent. But only a court can pronounce that judgement on the basis of evidence. As a society we cannot decide on innocence or guilt based on social class. Sure, the rich routinely manipulate the law, but as a reflex action of political correctness, if the mid-dle class is always guilty and the poor are always innocent then the law will always founder on a class war.

The CBI court’s order denying bail to Nupur Talwar reads: “The legal history is replete with instances of matricide and fratricide. Every-thing is possible in these days of modern era where moral values are fast declining and one can stoop to the lowest level". Is the Aarushi-Hemraj case about matricide, fratricide and the decline of moral values in the modern era? Or is it about evidence on record and trial based on evidence?

The camera is often needed to prod a comatose system. But today after four years of merciless coverage, if we want to safeguard the rule of law, it's time to switch off the cameras in the Aarushi-Hemraj case and let the dignity of the law take over.



Prosecution to Talwars: Confess your inner khap panchayat

Nupur Talwar claims that in her middle class circles, sex isn’t reason enough to kill your child. The

prosecution’s theory insists that behind the urban middle class veneer lies an age-old

rural mindset.

Avirook Sen, Jun 6, 2012

I n a courtroom in the provincial town of Ghaziabad, near Delhi, a fascinating mur-der case has entered its final stages. A suc-

cessful dentist couple, Rajesh and Nupur Tal-war, stand trial for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and their Nepali manservant Hemraj. The evidence, admits the Central Bureau of Investigation, has serious gaps, after an investi-gation that domesticated turtles would probably have done a better job of.

What has propelled the case forward is the belief among the constabulary and lower court judges that this is a straightforward case of “honour killing”. It just happens to be hidden under a heavy cloak of urban denial: such things are supposed to happen in the badlands of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, not in mid-dle and upper class neighbourhoods connected to the capital by toll-charging expressways.

The facts are as follows: 13-year-old Aarushi Talwar was murdered in her room in the Tal-wars’ flat in the Delhi suburb of Noida one night in May 2008. There were no signs of forced

entry into the flat, and nothing was missing. To the policemen, it looked like this: four people were in the flat, two had been murdered, so the other two must be responsible. A curiously worded motive was soon proposed: Dr Rajesh Talwar had walked in on his daughter and his servant, finding them in an “objectionable” though “not compromising” position. Enraged, he killed both of them with a golf club and a knife.

Hemraj, the manservant, was a 45-year-old from Nepal. He had grandchildren back home. Aarushi would have turned 14 in less than two weeks. Her post-mortem didn’t find any evi-dence of rape, or the presence of semen.

But to successive batches of investigators, most of them drawn from a milieu where it often takes less than rape or sexual relations for an honour killing to take place, there just could not be any other explanation. The Talwars had to have done it. Any father would, in the circum-stances: in a court of village elders the killing might even have been justifiable.

But “honour” is a strange thing. The rural poor and the rural rich—living without the buffer of a middle-class—often see the protection of fam-ily honour as a solemn duty. Even if it costs the lives of a few loved ones. Their allegiance is to the larger clan.

The middle-classes of the city are driven by an urban pursuit: the pursuit of ‘respectability’. Its markers are: decent earnings, children in good schools, clean homes… servants. Their alle-giance is to the small family unit.



Here, the preferred way of dealing with a scan-dal—like the driver eloping with the marriage-able daughter, for instance—is not a killing but a cover-up. The general lack of connect in the large cosmopolitan colony, working in its fa-vour. In the village, everyone would know; the marriage of distant cousins would be compro-mised.

But the memory of “honour” is hard to erase: mere relocation from farm to township doesn’t do it. It is a meme that refuses to die out from the cities of our subcontinent, and that’s why honour killings still occur. The city-dweller’s default position on these murders is that of

denial—a sense of ‘it cannot happen here’.

In her circles, Aarushi’s mother said in court last month, sex was not a big deal. You do not commit murder over it; you “sort it out”. Sack the servant, ground the daughter, keep it quiet.

No, says the prosecution. You may be middle-class, but beneath that coat of respectability, are the stains of memes you cannot run away from. You may live in the city, but the village is in you.

Like the Talwars, the urban middle-class now waits to hear from the court.



Convicting the Talwars: Middle class murderers like us

Our theories of their guilt are more revealing than the details of the crime. What we believe about

the Talwars speaks volumes about what we believe about ourselves.

Lakshmi Chaudhry Jun 7, 2012

"E verything is possible in these days of modern era [sic] wherein moral values are fast declining and one can

stoop to the lowest extent," writes Special Judge S Lal in his order rejecting Nupur Talway's bail plea.

Offered as a rebuttal of the defense counsel's claim that Aarushi's mother as"the creator can-not be the destructor of her own beloved daugh-ter," his dark observation reflects a broadly held suspicion: that the forces of liberalisation have unleashed our inner demons, giving free reign to acts once regarded as unthinkable.

Twenty years ago, we would have found it near-impossible to believe that respectable, well-educated, professional parents club their only child to death in anger over an alleged liaison with a male servant – and her “lover” too boot. The evidence would have to be overwhelming and incontrovertible. Yet today, we embrace the possibility with nonchalant ease.

So why this new-found belief in the middle class instinct for murder? Our theories of the crime are perhaps more revealing than its details.

What we believe about the Talwars speaks vol-umes about what we believe about ourselves.

Judge Lal, for one, points to a decline of moral values in new India, an argument amplified upon by this Open magazine article titled The New Criminal:

A fast changing society, says sociologist Patricia Uberoi, experiences what she terms “normless-ness”, where old ways of life no longer operate. It renders the middle-class particularly vulner-able… It starts with a loss of fear of the law, and draws upon a kind of discontent that is typical of a society in transition, where old social norms are abandoned even though people are not yet ready for the new. Aggravated by work and re-lationship pressures, all this results in a case of raw nerves and gnawing insecurities. If some-thing snaps, it could suddenly spiral into a fit of murderous rage.

It sounds entirely plausible in a world where the newspapers each day bring news of yet another outrageous crime: bodies chopped into bits, stuffed into suitcases or cooked in a tandoor; the straying housewife who hires a contract killer; the college kids who stab someone for jumping the queue.

On the other hand, there are those who blame not modernity, but the lack thereof. The Tal-wars may have killed their child precisely be-cause we have not changed at all. Behind the urban facade of glitzy malls, foreign holidays, smart phones and designer jeans, the middle class mindset remains trapped in the nineteenth century.

"For all that's changed on the outside, the in-


http://www.scribd.com/doc/92086418/Nupur-Talwar-refused-bail-read-entire-court-order

http://www.scribd.com/doc/92086418/Nupur-Talwar-refused-bail-read-entire-court-order

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/the-new-criminal

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/the-new-criminal


ner khap panchayat remains exactly the same," muses a friend, while another chimes in, "You can't discount the importance of honour." This may well be an old-fashioned "honour killing" in modern guise. There have been many such cases in recent years, including that of Delhi-based journalist Nirupama Pathak whose mother was arrested for smothering her to death for want-ing to marry outside her caste.

Then again, liaisons between middle class kids and the working class are not rare. Bangalore Mirror noted that in 2011, "2,638 teenaged girls, some as young as 13, eloped with their ‘beaus’," who came "for the most part, from social seg-ments considerably below their own — sales boys, cable TV boys, garage mechanics, even a couple of rowdies." The families did not take violent action against either their daughter or their lovers in these cases.

Despite the high-octane media coverage, mid-dle class 'honour killings' are an exception not a rule.

More importantly, most such cases are pre-meditated, involve widespread collusion, and offer plenty of evidence of a feudal mindset. The "inner khap panchayat" rarely remains entirely hidden. In the case of the Talwars, even the CBI report is unwilling to argue that these modern doting parents deliberately killed their daughter in a moment of feudal rage:

Dr Rajesh Talwar became very angry and picked up the golf club kept in the room of Hemraj with the intention of killing Hemraj for getting close to his precious daughter...

Dr Rajesh Talwar started hitting with the golf club with the intention to kill Hemraj. The first blow landed on the back side of the head of Hemraj since that side was top most. On get-ting hit once or twice, Hemraj collapsed and fell down. Shifting of the position of the head of Hemraj resulted in the blows of golf club land-ing on the forehead of Aarushi. This resulted in frontal injuries to Aarushi.

What's most striking about the CBI's theory of the crime is the level of convolution. First, Rajesh attacked Hemraj in a moment of rage, and in doing so, accidentally hit his own daugh-

ter. Then they dragged him up to the roof, and slit his neck with a surgical knife because he was still alive – presumably to cover their tracks. Then they went back to Aarushi, who was either dying or dead, and slit her neck, driven by "the common intention of destroying evidence and dressing up the scene of crime." And finally, Nupur cleaned her daughter's private parts to destroy any evidence of sexual intimacy with Hemraj.

The narrative lays out a bizarre sequence of unbridled, unprecedented rage followed im-mediately by ruthless, calculated efficiency, as though the CBI felt obliged to account for why two seemingly normal middle class profession-als could commit a double murder – including that of their own "precious daughter" – without any evidence of previous pathology or domestic strife. They were not the kind of parents who would plan to kill their own child, but they are the kind of people who would slit her throat to cover up their tracks.

In comparison, the theory of the Talwars' in-nocence is absurdly simple. Under pressure to solve a high-profile crime and rescue an in-vestigation irretrievably botched up by the UP police, the CBI turned to the scapegoats nearest at hand: the parents. This explanation is not just straight-forward but also highly plausible given the level of incompetence, corruption and bad faith in our justice system. How many of us would trust the police to conduct a fair and scrupulous investigation of a murder in our own home? Not many, and yet we've have been quick to suspect the Talwars.

Are the Talwars innocent? I truly don't know. Given the complexity of the crime scene, the disastrous initial investigation, and bad fo-rensics, it's difficult to determine exactly what happened at this early stage of the court case. What is clear is this: none of the theories of the middle class murderer who kills either due to poor impulse control, lax moral values or ret-rograde sexism fit the Talwars case. And yet we continue to believe the worst about the Talwars, and in doing so, confirm our darkest fears about ourselves – and those around us. So here's the more important question: why are so many of us – including the media – so invested in af-firming their guilt?



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