Nature of our ‘Intelligence’ Agencies – So Intelligent!!

Now in one of India’s most high profile cases, that of Aarushi’s murder, a verdict has been passed and parents convicted of Honor killing. But for a full analysis do read Outlook India’s complete factsheet on it showing how flimsy has been the investigation. It is their cover story this month – ‘Everybody killed Aarushi’. And if this is the kind of investigation on such a high profile case, what is one to speak of the rest?

So, 26 points have been laid out for the conviction and each one can be doubted (in brackets).

But, but but…

“Sau baat ki eik baat” (or should one say 26 baat ki eik baat), can the CBI answer just one question:

CBI conducted a narco analysis on assistant Krishna in which he confessed to the crime and even recalled a song he and Hemraj were listening to while discussing Aarushi lustfully. (The TV Channel confirmed on this song). Then they went to her room and she protested to the molestation and he killed her and later Hemraj because they had an altercation. Why was Krishna not the prime suspect? Why do the damn Narco analysis if you are going to ignore it simply because it does not fit your ‘pet and preconceived theory’?

Sure the Talwars have been found in mitigating circumstances – I mean their daughter and servant were murdered in the house in the night while they were sleeping in their bedroom in the same house. But I’m not sure why this is being made out to be an open and shut case – it is anything but. There is a classic term for such things – ‘circumstantial evidence’. Countless cases exist round the world of people being wrongfully convicted when their only problem was being in the vicinity of the crime scene. But in this case particularly there is an alleged criminal with a clear motive and who has confessed to the crime under narco analysis – we can just pretend that is not important? It is shocking. 

Anyhow, read on..

Reasons that led to the conviction (and why each one can be doubted too)

1. Irrefragably on the fateful night of May 15 and 16, 2008, both the accused were last seen with both the deceased in flat no. (Obviously.. you see they live in the same house!!Family members are last seen together and then a thief enters and kills one of them and gets away..)

L- 32, Jalvayu Vihar, Noida, around 9.30 pm by Umesh Sharma, the driver of Rajesh Talwar.

2. On the morning of May 16, 2008, around 6 am, Aarushi was found murdered in her bedroom, which was adjacent to the bedroom of the accused and there was only a partition wall between the two bedrooms. (Yes and a team proved in a mock test that no sound could be heard from the adjacent room)

3. The dead body of the servant, Hemraj, was found lying in a pool of blood on the terrace of the flat on May 17, 2008, and the door of the terrace was found locked from inside.

4. There is a proximity between the point of time when both the accused and the deceased persons were last seen together alive and the deceased were murdered on the intervening night of May 15 and 16, 2008, and as such the time is so small that possibility of any other person(s) other than the accused being the authors of the crime becomes impossible. (Repeat of point one)

5. The door of Aarushi's bedroom was fitted with automatic clickshut lock. Mahesh Kumar Mishra, the then SP (City), Noida, has deposed that when he talked to Rajesh on May 16 morning, he had told him that in the preceding night around 11.30 pm he had gone to sleep with the key after locking the door of Aarushi's bedroom from outside.

Both the accused have admitted that the door of Aarushi's bedroom had an automatic click- shut lock like that of a hotel, which could not be opened from outside without key but could be opened from inside without a key. No explanation has been offered by the accused as to how the lock of Aarushi’s room was opened and by whom. (Servants would have the key and so also their accomplices like Krishna if they had designs on the girl)

6. The Internet remained active on the night of the gory incident suggesting that at least one of the accused was awake. (Internet was active on the subsequent night also when neither of the accused were using it – unreliable data?)

7. There is nothing to show that an outsider(s) came inside the house on the said night after 9.30 pm. (I thought people freely walked in and out of the crime scene before any Investigation even started; so we don’t know this)

8. There was no disruption in the supply of electricity on that night. (So??)

9. No person was seen loitering near the flats in suspicious circumstances during that night. (So?? You don’t have to loiter outside esp after committing the crime.. you would simply take off)

10. There is no evidence of forcible entry of any outsider(s) in the flat on the fateful night. (Need not have been forceful – Hemraj could have allowed him in. This could prove the criminal was known to Hemraj)

11. There is no evidence of any larcenous act in the flat. (?? Come again..)

12. On the morning of May 16, 2008, when the maid came to the flat, a false pretext was made by Nupur Talwar that the door might have been locked from outside by Hemraj although it was not locked or latched from outside.  (So??)

13. The house maid, Bharti Mandal, has nowhere stated that when she went inside the flat both the accused were found weeping. (The maid’s ideas about grieving might be very different from that of Talwars’)

14. From the testimony of Bharti it is clear that when she reached the flat and talked to Nupur the latter had not complained about the murder of her daughter and rather she told the maid that Hemraj might have gone to fetch milk from Mother Dairy after locking the door from outside. This lack of spontaneity is relevant under Section 8 of the Evidence Act. (People respond curiously under shock!!  To my mind if they had done the crime, they should have done the weeping etc. to hide it.. Obvious.. duh)

15. The clothes of both the accused were not found soaked in blood. It is highly unnatural that parents of the deceased Aarushi did not cling to and hug her on seeing her murdered. (The clothes were not ‘soaked’ – sure, they weren’t murdered. There must have been stains; I’m betting on this)

16. No outsider(s) will dare to take Hemraj to the terrace in severely injured condition and thereafter look for a lock to be placed in the door of the terrace. (Exactly, Hemraj went to the terrace after Aarushi’s murder and post an argument, the criminal murdered him too. It has been proven that Hemraj’s body was not dragged up)

17. It is not possible that an outsider(s) after committing the murders will muster courage to have Scotch whisky knowing that the parents of the deceased Aarushi are in the nearby room and his top priority will be to run away from the crime scene immediately.  (oh ya, ‘criminals’ .. one couldn’t say for sure if they had whisky outside and simply brought the bottle in..)

18. A single person cannot take Hemraj’s body all the way up the stairs to the terrace. (uff.. the body was not taken up.. there are no stains/ dragging signs. Hemraj went up .. maybe with Krishna)

19. The door of the terrace was never locked prior to the occurrence. It was found locked on the morning of May 16, 2008, and the accused did not give the key of the lock to the police despite being asked for the same. (Yes, leaving their house to servants, they may not have had the key nor known a body is upstairs.. If you want to hide a body, you’d go and dump it somewhere in a nullah – you won’t dump it on your terrace..duh Particularly then you can claim the servant killed her and ran away - see so plausible. Why dump it on your own terrace?)

20. The accused have taken plea in the statements under Section 313 CrPC that about 8-10 days before the murders, painting of cluster had started and the navies used to take water from water tank placed on the terrace of the flat and then Hemraj had started locking the door of the terrace and the key of that lock remained with him. If it was so then it was not easily possible for an outsider to find out the key of the lock to the terrace door. (ya, you see this proves Hemraj opened the door to the terrace and both he and the criminal went up and then only the criminal came out, put the same lock and made off)

21. If an outsider(s) committed the crime in question after locking the door of the terrace and had gone out of the flat then the outer most mesh door or middle mesh door must have been found latched from outside. (why lock them from outside.. you don’t want people to think some outsider did it..)

22. The motive of the commission of the crime has been established. (No evidence ‘ever’ of this couple having regressive views.. Motive could be lust as Krishna confessed in his narco analysis test)

23. It is not possible that after commission of the crime, an outsider( s) will dress- up the crime scene. (Dunno)

24. Golf club no. 5 was thrown in the loft after the commission of the crime and the same was produced after many months by the accused Rajesh. (It need not have been the golf club and anyone else could have used it too. The criminal won’t be thinking of taking permission to use it)

25. Pattern of head and neck injuries of both the accused persons are almost similar in nature and can be caused by golf club and scalpel, respectively. (can be also caused by a khukri – found in Krishna’s house)

26. Accused Rajesh was a member of Noida Golf Club and golf clubs were produced by him before the CBI and scalpel is used by dentists and both the accused are dentists by profession. (He never denied the golf clubs belonged to him. But no telling whether it was used and more importantly who did use it)

I’m at a loss..

Really in this country thousands of honor killings take place and most cases aren’t booked despite a full village bearing witness to the brutality but somehow Talwars seem to have gotten the CBI’s goat. Is it some bruised egos as the investigation seems hackneyed meant to ‘somehow’ nail this couple. The nature of investigation seems ‘shoddy and biased’ at best. It can perhaps be summed up as "if facts don't fit the theory, ignore those facts".

Yes so I’m not sure justice for Aarushi is served if her killer is still at large. And, if the parents are wrongly accused, then this is double tragedy!