Aarushi Murder: Aarushi! A wreath for you!!
I was waiting for the media’s angry diatribe against the Central Bureau of Investigation and the local police supposed to maintain law and order in New Okhla Industrial Development Authority [NOIDA] bordering our national capital region of New Delhi to subside in connection with the botch up of the Aarushi murder case.
Now, as a professional forensic scientist, I will attempt to play a mixture of the immortal characters created by Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle viz. Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes respectively to dissipate the needless noxious fumes of suspense surrounding this tale and take the nation directly to the nub of the matter.
Undoubtedly, the handling of the teenaged innocent looking girl Aarushi’s murder initially by the NOIDA police and later by the CBI are crying shames raised to the power of infinity as all of them worked with a single criminal intention of saving the perpetrators right from the beginning while pretending to do otherwise.
Bogus techniques of narco-analysis, lie detector-tests, brain-mapping and/or its fingerprinting and other varieties of abracadabra marketed by two Indian psychologists of dubious distinction, as expected contorted the compounded confusion.
The time-line of this case
May 16, 2008
Aarushi Talwar (15), daughter of a dentist couple doctors Rajesh and Nupur, was found dead with her throat slit in the bedroom of their flat Jalvayu Vihar located in NOIDA.
The Talwars promptly name the missing domestic help of Nepalese extraction – Yam Prasad Banjade alias Hemraj (45) as the prime suspect.
May 17, 2008
Hemraj's body found on the terrace of Talwars’ residence with bloodstains and multiple wounds by a retired police officer relative of the Talwars!!
Police Station Officer (P.S.O.) Dataram Nauneria transferred for botching up the investigation.
Television channels quote the chapter and verse of the autopsy report that ruled out sexual assault.
Nobody mentions the discovery a white discharge from the vagina of Aarushi, nobody thinks of sending its swab for forensic testing.
May 18, 2008
Media quotes police officials pointing to the foul deeds’ commission with ‘surgical precision’.
Superintendent of Police Mahesh Mishra transferred.
May 19, 2008
A new suspect – Talwars’ former Nepalese domestic help Vishnu Sharma is named!
May 21, 2008
Delhi Police officials inform the media that the crimes were committed either by a ‘doctor or a butcher’.
May 22, 2008
Suspecting a ‘honour killing’ NOIDA cops question Aarushi's close friend with whom the victim had 688 conversations in separate phone calls within the time span of 45 days preceding the murder.
May 23, 2008
Aarushi's father Dr. Rajesh Talwar arrested for the double-murder.
June 2008
The Central Bureau of Investigation was entrusted the job of investigating the murders.
Immediately, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati ordered the transfers of all senior police officers who were part of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the matter.
The marching orders recipients included NOIDA Senior Superintendent of Police, Satish Ganesh and Meerut Range Inspector General Gurdarshan Singh.
Much later, the deputation of CBI officer Arun Kumar, formerly a member of the Uttar Pradesh Police, who was in charge of the investigation also ended July, 2008.
Rajesh Talwar, his wife Nupur Talwar, Krishna alias Kishen his Nepalese compounder of Dr. Rajesh Talwar, Vijay Mandal and Raj Kumar domestic aides of the Talwars’ neighbours arrested by CBI undergo polygraph and Narco Analysis and psychological assessment tests at Forensic Laboratories in Bangalore and in New Delhi besides the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at different times.
CBI discloses discovery of ‘vital evidence’ from Krishna’s personal effects curiously seized from a shed located in the Talwar home!
Throughout the month repeated bail pleas made by the accused were rejected.
July 2008-December 2010
The CBI had all and sundry, suspects and otherwise, in custody, did multiple scopolamine tests, produced zilch.
The alibis of the parents were floated in the media and then those too went up in smoke.
Worse, ‘evidence’ submitted for DNA analysis in Hyderabad were proven to be fabricated!
Meanwhile, Nepalese politicians threatened to sue the CBI for inhumanly torturing their nationals to save the real murderers – the Talwars!
Slowly all the accused were let off on bail.
January 2011
Finally, CBI washes its hands off the case and files a closure report.
The spreading of a vile rumour through the media that the Talwars’ [Aarushi’s parents] domestic help Hemraj was ‘missing’ from the crime scene and therefore, the obvious killer is pathetically deliberate, suspicious and a totally amateurish attempt and a dead giveaway.
Here is a check list that would prove to anyone beyond any doubt that the whole thing is as phoney as a seven and a half rupee note:
[a] The entrance of the Talwars’ residence was not forced open and therefore, the killer had the keys
[b] The parents ruled out an honour killing and the local police ruled out a sexual crime
[c] The body of the second victim was found nearly 24 hours after the discovery of the first bloody body on the next floor of the crime scene and a trail of blood stains were found leading right from the same floor as the first body was discovered by a retired police officer and a relative of the Talwars
[d] The local police could not have been so plainly and stupidly dumb to overlook a bloody corpse at the scene of crime and allow its discovery a day later
[e] The substitution of material sent for DNA analysis establishes complicity on the part of the local and the federal investigators.
And finally
[f] Clearly, neither Aarushi nor Hemraj created a new style of hara-kiri and committed new version of the Japanese Samurais’ suicide called Seppuku
So, here are my deductions on the basis of evidence available so far and suggestions to solve this perfidy – if not for anything else, at least to restore the confidence of the people of India on the Central Bureau of Investigation:
1. The body of Hemraj was planted on the Talwars’ residence with the complicity of the local police and the Talwars themselves.
Therefore, step one: Immediate suspension of the local police officers who investigated the case and questioning in an open magistrate’s court about this anomaly by a smart criminal lawyer.
The queries should dwell at length about their opinions about the ‘dressing up the crime scene’ since the CBI has alleged it seriously in its closure report.
If needed, the personnel can be arrested and proceeded against later.
2. The evidence submitted to the DNA labs in Hyderabad were obviously substituted with fake material.
Therefore, step two: All the officials and personnel concerned ought to be summarily suspended and issued with a show cause notice as to why they should not be summarily dismissed besides being proceeded against criminally for suppressing vital material evidence in a double murder case.
3. The CBI is clearly aware that the Supreme Court has thrown the book at all sorts of Narco-Analysis, polygraph and other truth serum type unscientific tests.
Therefore, step three: Sack the officials who ordered this nonsense or proceed against them too for wanton and wilful dereliction of duty with criminal intent.
Hand over the case to an impartial team of retired officials from the same IPS set up – this time employ persons of impeccable credentials.
Disband all the narco-analysis labs and declare all lie-detection tests illegal.
Else, the media can boldly clamour for the same injection and slapping treatment for former union minister A Raja, the former CMs of Maharashtra and Suresh Kalmadi to uncover the truths in the 2G Spectrum, Adarsh and CWG scams respectively.
That fear within the powerful can move several mountains all at once.
4. Aarushi spoke to her close friend 688 times in the 45 days preceding her murder.
Therefore step 4: It is a matter of public knowledge that all calls are recorded internationally these days in and retained in cyberspace servers to curb terrorism. The government of India can apply and the get the recording of these conversations with the proper letter rogatory issued from the relevant courts having jurisdiction.
That will prove beyond doubt from the lamentably dead child’s own conversation as to who could have killed her!
5. The dimensions of the injuries measuring about 8 x 3 cms identically on Aarushi and Hemraj was found matching with those of Dr Rajesh Talwar’s golf club recovered after considerable lapse of time. It was also found that Talwar was surfing the internet till 11.50 pm while Aarushi was being murdered between midnight and 1 am. Just as all phone calls are recorded, the internet service provider in this case too would have a record of what he surfed. A simple subpoena would be enough for that record to be produced in court.
Therefore step 5: On the basis of the downloaded stuff by Dr Talwar, subject him to intense questioning in a judicial magistrate’s court by experts in forensics, murder weapons, wounds et al. Neither can Dr Talwar ever allege torture or can insist on silence in court because, he and his wife after all had subjected themselves to drugged questioning in the past by dubious persons. This time, if the couple is truly innocent, what would stop them from being questioning in an open court? Of course, they can insist on silence. But then, that would let the cat out of the bag, wouldn’t it?
While I welcome all types of scientific forensic psychology, I hate pseudoscientific procedures practiced and marketed by criminal charlatans.
If need be, the accused can be subjected to internationally credible Forensic Psychiatric Evaluations standardised vide the Stanford-Binet and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
The fictional crime investigator Sherlock Holmes was quoted as saying often thus: “If you eliminate all the probables in a crime investigation, what remains is the possible.”
In her famous novel Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie’s ace detective Hercule Poirot discovers the cleverly executed crime by all concerned in a train.
In that case, all the VIPs jointly execute the crime but the clever Poirot discovers the motive and the perpetrators.
I second Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily’s concern and agree with his yen to find the truth.
Now, with what I have provided above, it would be child’s play for the Government of India to find out the truth.
But, most importantly there is a question to be answered before that.
Is the Government of India ready, willing and able to do so and restore the nation’s confidence in the CBI?
