The Aarushi Talwar murder case was a complex matter with many twists and turns, flip-flops by law enforcement authorities as well as the courts. When the young girl was murdered just before her 14th birthday along with domestic worker Hemraj Banjade, the story was splashed across print and other media as a sensational whodunit. Yesterday, the courts gave their verdict on the appeal from the double murder that occurred in 2008.
On 16 May 2008, the body of Aarushi was discovered with her throat slit. At first domestic servant Hemraj was considered to be the prime suspect. However, the partially decomposed body of Hemraj was discovered on the terrace the next day.
This led to heavy criticism of the police for failing to secure the crime scene and also nullified the theory of Hemraj being the murderer of Aarushi. It was now treated as a double murder and various theories were then put forth about the possible culprits, the motive and whether it was an ‘inside’ job.
Since the Hemraj-as-murderer theory was abandoned, various other theories were put forward. The family’s former servants were examined as suspects before the police arrested the parents of Aarushi, dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur for the murder. The police did this on the suspicion that Rajesh Talwar found his young daughter in an ‘objectionable’ position with the domestic servant and killed both in a violent fit of rage – something akin to honour killing. It was also conjectured that Rajesh killed Hemraj because of an alleged affair that the former was having; for which the latter was blackmailing him.
After this, suspicion was directed at the assistant of the Talwars, Krishna and two other domestic servants of friends and neighbours: Vijay and Rajkumar. The theory this time was that the three were attempting to sexually assault Aarushi when Hemraj intercepted them; this led to the three killing Aarushi and Hemraj.
At one point the Talwars were not under suspicion and the matter was handed over the CBI. The team at CBI said that the initial investigation was badly botched up and there were critical gaps in the evidence. Though the CBI said that the evidence was only circumstantial and that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute Rajesh Talwar, the court rejected this claim and initiated proceedings against the Talwars.
The lower court held the Talwars guilty of murdering their own daughter and servant and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The Talwars challenged the verdict in the High Court.
On 12th October 2017, the Allahabad High Court gave a verdict in the appeal from the trail court decision and the Talwars were acquitted. The life imprisonment sentence was set aside. This is not to say that they are declared innocent; merely that the prosecution had not proved their guilt beyond reasonable doubt and the court had given the accused the benefit of the doubt, according to the prosecutors.
Advocate for the Talwars’ Harish Salwe has said that he was convinced of the Talwars' innocence. Commentators also feel that this was something of a trail by media and that the court convicted the Talwars based on flimsy, circumstantial evidence in part because of the pressure generated by the huge amount of publicity that the matter generated.
Many celebrities have also come out in favour of the verdict and tweeted their support of the Talwars whom they felt had been implicated falsely and undergone a harrowing time as a result.
If not the Talwars, then who? This is the question that continues to puzzle everyone. The three other possible suspects, Krishna, Vijay and Rajkumar had been subject to narco-tests and they had revealed their presence in the Talwar’s flat and also their alleged involvement in the murder. However since the test results were inadmissible in court and there was nothing else to back up their possible culpability, they were never prosecuted. The Talwars had asked for DNA tests in the matter, but these were not carried out.
Was this a matter of a horribly botched investigation and the parents of the murdered child being made scape-goats? The matter remains unresolved. Since no one is ‘Guilty’ of the murders of Aarushi and Hemraj, justice is not yet done. If the parents are in fact innocent; there is no closure for them; knowing that the killer(s) of their daughter is/are still at large. Perhaps this double murder will go down in the annals of crime history as the case that baffled everyone and remained unsolved.
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