On 12 October, the Allahabad High Court delivered its verdict in the case, acquitting the Talwars of murder charges. This article was first published on 1 October, 2015 and is being republished from The Quint’s archives in light of the verdict.
The Talwars are a close knit family. Dinesh is Rajesh’s elder brother, and an eye surgeon by profession. The day he lost his teenaged niece, he never could have imagined that his own brother would be held responsible for killing his niece.
Dinesh says family and friends keep putting in money regularly and that’s how they manage to support Rajesh and Nupur. But funds keep running out, and they are trying somehow not to sell their home in Noida. But he knows the cost of fighting the legal battle will claim the house soon. And even Rajesh and Nupur’s clinic.
Now we are living in the hope that the judiciary will deliver justice one day. Hope it goes by facts this time and not perception.
– Dr Dinesh Talwar
The family just hopes that justice is done before all is lost.
Sitting across the table from me at his eye clinic in Hauz Khas, Dr. Dinesh Talwar has many questions. Only questions but no answers. Dr Dinesh Talwar asks:
“UP police botched up the probe from day one, they trampled over physical evidence. Along with the forensic examination, there were lie detector, brain mapping and narco tests that all showed that Rajesh and Nupur were innocent and Krishna, Vijay and Rajkumar (Servants who worked for the family and neighbors) showed deception and suggested their involvement. That was supposed to point the investigating authorities in a direction, wasn’t it? Then why are the two innocent people in jail? It makes no sense.”
In February 2011, we saw the forensic report which stated that Krishna’s (Rajesh Talwar’s attendant at his clinic) pillow had blood and Hemraj’s DNA on it, I thought this was all the evidence we need, so we filed a supplementary affidavit at the Allahabad High Court. In March 2011, the prosecution casually passed around two pictures in the courtroom to show that the pillow covers had been interchanged by mistake.
“They claimed, Krishna’s pillow was actually Hemraj’s and hence his DNA is on it. The Allahabad High Court at the time did not even take it on record because there was no affidavit. When the case went to trail, these pictures were never even shown; there was no mention of them in the court records. Then how does this find a mention as evidence in the judgment delivered by the High Court?”
“Then there was a CDFD (Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics) letter saying that there had been a typing error to further iterate that the pillow covers had been changed. ‘Z-14 should be read as Z-20’, CDFD said. Further, the last hearing was on 8 March, 2011. Judgment dismissing the revision petition came on 18 March, 2011. However, this letter from CDFD sighting typographical error is dated 24 March, 2011 after the judgement. But until we brought out this evidence, for two and a half years, nobody discovered the error?”
The CBI filed a closure report in December 2010 which clearly stated that there was “insufficient evidence for persecution”, how did that insufficient evidence become sufficient? When the closure report was filed, we asked for a further investigation, instead we were summoned and put on trail. What kind of justice system is this?
“The judgment that convicts Rajesh and Nupur rests on the theory that this is an honour killing. CBI believes that my niece Aarushi and servant Hemraj were found in a compromising position in her bedroom and that is why Rajesh killed them both. If this theory is true, why was there no blood of Hemraj in Aarushi’s room?”
If Nupur and Rajesh did dress up the scene of crime, how did the UP Police collect 24 finger prints from the house?
“First the CBI said no evidence against parents, then they said no evidence against servants. There have been so many flip-flops. CBI was convinced on a basis of a hunch and nothing more. It is scary that evidence in the form of scientific reports has no integrity and can be changed at the whims of the CBI. Exoneration by forensic tests also means nothing in our country?”
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