The Allahabad High Court judgment acquitting Nupur and Rajesh Talwar of the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj is also seen as an indictment of the way the Uttar Pradesh police and then the Central Bureau of Investigation initially probed the case.
Aarushi was found murdered with her throat slit in her bedroom at the Talwars’ Noida residence in the early hours of May 16, 2008. The local police began investigations. However, they could not trace Hemraj. His body was lying on the terrace and was discovered by a retired police officer a day later.
Major lacuna
The police were unable to gather the crucial forensic evidence from the crime scene. Based on their findings, the police accused Dr. Talwar of involvement in the murders.
However, the case was handed over to the CBI on May 31, 2008, following a public outcry. “The scene of crime had been badly tampered with on the first day itself. As a result, we got nothing of value from there. That was the major lacuna in the entire investigation,” former CBI Director A.P. Singh said on Thursday.
The CBI’s first team, under the supervision of senior Indian Police Service officer Arun Kumar, zeroed in on the dentist couple’s assistant Krishna and two domestic helps Vijay and Rajkumar. The three were arrested, thoroughly interrogated and were also made to undergo narco-analysis tests. However, the team failed to probe its case against them.
Following severe criticism from all quarters, the CBI constituted another team in 2009 to follow the leads, which ultimately led to the agency once again focussing on the role of the dentist couple. The first team had claimed that Aarushi and Hemraj were killed with a Nepali knife. A golf club — later handed over by the Talwars — became the possible murder weapon for the second team.
The second team could not gather any direct evidence linking the murders to the Talwars. It then filed a closure report before the special court in December 2010. However, the closure report highlighted several instances of meticulous destruction of evidence and unexplained circumstances and facts related to the “dressing-up” of the crime scene. It pointed the finger at the Talwars, stating that the murders were in all probability committed by someone present inside. The house had not been broken into by any outsider on the fateful night.
The special Ghaziabad court refused to accept the closure report and converted it into a charge sheet against the Talwars. Itconvicted the Talwars on the basis of circumstantial and forensic evidence.
