Arushi Murder - Latest!!

Aarushi murder case: Only Talwars, no one else in house, says CBI (Courtesy: TOI)

ALLAHABAD: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, who are fighting accusations of murdering their daughter, Aarushi, escalated their confrontation with the CBI on Monday. The dentist duo alleged before Allahabad High Court that a forensic report with the agency showed that fingerprints found on the terrace of their house, a bottle of whisky recovered from the house after the killings, personal belongings of Hemraj and the bedding of their clinic assistant Krishna matched those of their murdered servant.

Their counsel, Gopal Chaturvedi, told the court that this was an indication of Krishna's involvement. The affidavit was based on the DNA finger-printing report dated November 6, 2008, obtained last week from the CBI court in Ghaziabad.

The Talwars have accused the CBI of implicating them in the murders by ignoring evidence of Krishna's alleged involvement.

In New Delhi, CBI rejected the Talwars' claim. A CBI spokesperson said, "Their claim is wrong. No such DNA fingerprints were found on Krishna's pillow or terrace which were of the same person.''
When told that the claim was based on a DNA test conducted at a Hyderabad government laboratory, the spokesperson said, ''First of all, we have not given any forensic report to Talwars in the case. Secondly, they (Talwars) are claiming such a thing for the first time. They have been giving interviews on TV almost everyday. Why didn't they say all this earlier?''

On February 9, the special CBI court in Ghaziabad had directed CBI to prosecute Rajesh and Nupur for the murder of their daughter and domestic help Hemraj. The court had also directed the investigating agency to proceed with the prosecution of Nupur Talwar for criminal conspiracy for murder. The court had fixed February 28 as the next date for hearing the case.

The Talwars also questioned the CBI's reluctance to release the desktop installed in Aarushi's room. Their counsel said that they wanted to find out themselves as to who switched the modem on and off after the murder took place as claimed by the CBI.

The dentist couple are before the Allahabad court challenging the decision of the CBI court to try them for Aarushi's murder. As the hearing could not conclude on Monday, the court ordered that the case be listed for Tuesday for further proceedings.

The Talwars moved the high court to set aside the order of the CBI court against them. Their application was heard by a Bench comprising Justice Nala Krishna Narayan on Friday last. As the hearing remained incomplete, the court posted the case for Monday (February 28) and concluded the day's work declaring that the hearing would continue on Tuesday.

Talwars also claimed there was no evidence against Nupur who is named as a co-accused by the CBI court and that as of now, there was nothing in the case diary that could validate summons issued to her.

DMK Family receives Rs.200 Cr Bribe in 2G!

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The police on Thursday linked a key ally of the ruling Congress party to a multi-billion dollar telecoms scam, dealing a fresh blow to a government already crippled by corruption scandals.
A police lawyer told a court companies linked to a telecoms firm under investigation for buying mobile licences at unfairly cheap prices had paid 2.14 billion rupees ($47 million) to a TV channel run by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which helps the ruling coalition maintain its slim majority in parliament.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which had brought parliament to a standstill demanding a probe into India's biggest corruption scandal, has said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's reliance on the DMK prevented him from quickly probing the case.

The latest court documents come a day after the government appeared close to agreeing to a broad, cross-party investigation in the scandal, paving the way for parliament to resume as normal on Feb. 28 for a session that will see discussions on the budget.

The scam does not threaten the survival of the government, but it has tarnished Singh's reputation and rattled investors in Asia's third largest economy.

While scrambling to control the fallout from the scandal, one of the many during the Congress' second term, the government is also distracted from policymaking, further delaying crucial economic reforms such opening up the retail and financial sectors to foreign investors.

Court documents filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and seen by Reuters, showed that a company linked to Shahid Balwa, the vice chairman of a joint venture between a local firm and Abu Dhabi's Etisalat, had given the money to a TV station what was linked to Andimuthu Raja, the disgraced telecoms minister who was sacked over the scandal.

Authorities have arrested Raja, a DMK member, and Balwa in connection with the scandal, in which the government is alleged to have lost as much $39 billion in the award of second-general telecoms licences in 2008.

"There was a transaction of about 2.14 billion rupees from Cineyug Films to Kalaignar TV in the year 2009," the court documents said.

The document said Kalaignar TV, which is controlled by the DMK, was linked to Raja and that the money was given to Cineyug by firms controlled by Balwa and his relatives
Balwa's laywer, Vivek Aggrawal, told the court the money was related to a deal Cineyug was considering with Kalaignar TV.

"At the last moment our talks fizzled out. This money has been returned," he said. DMK officials declined to comment.

Separately, the Supreme Court suggested on Thursday a special court try all cases related to the telecoms scandal. The government has two weeks to respond to the suggestion.
(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Miral Fahmy)

Arushi Hemraj Murders - a new twist! (courtesy: Yahoo.com)

A disturbing sexual angle has emerged in the murder of Aarushi Talwar, 14. Crucial facts left out from her post-mortem report suggest that her private parts were "extraordinarily dilated". But there were no signs of rape. These facts, established by the CBI after they questioned the doctor who performed the post-mortem, give a new twist to the case."The vaginal orifice of the deceased was unduly large and mouth of cervix was visible," says the CBI's closure report.

Her private parts were cleaned. This caused water stains on the bedsheet. There was no semen on the bedsheet. But the pyjamas Aarushi wore did not have water stains on it. This shows that the crime scene was dressed up. The CBI believes Aarushi may have been killed elsewhere and the body placed on her bed.
 parallel investigation by Headlines Today reveals that the chairperson of the National Commission on Women (NCW) Girija Vyas allegedly scuttled a probe into the Aarushi's murder by a two-member NCW committee. Soon after the killing, this committee visited the Talwar house in Jalvayu Vihar, Noida, to investigate. Former NCW member Nirmala Venkatesh alleges that as soon as they stepped into Hemraj's room, she got five calls from Vyas, asking her to stop the probe. Vyas initially denied there was an inquiry and that a committee was formed. She later admitted that there was, but said the report was not made public because the CBI was about to investigate.

These sensational revelations fly in the face of the CBI's closure report. Last month, the CBI sought the special court's permission to close the double murder case because it could not solve it.

Though the CBI has been unable to nail the accused, its investigations have completely ruled out the possibility of outsiders having killed Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj Banjade. Circumstantial evidence points to the complicity of those inside. The crime scene was methodically "dressed up"or cleansed of all evidence which could implicate the Talwars. An expert from the forensic science laboratory, Gandhinagar, who inspected the crime scene, says that the crime had been committed by someone "very close to Aarushi".

Nobody except the killer or killers, of course, knows what exactly happened in the Talwar residence during the six crucial hours between 12 midnight and 6 a.m. on May 16, 2008, when both Hemraj and Aarushi were brutally murdered within an hour. Aarushi was bludgeoned on her forehead and her throat slit with a small, sharp object. So was Hemraj.

A reconstruction of the crime, however, increasingly points to an inside hand. The assailants had gained easy access to the flat because there were no signs of forced entry. They killed Aarushi and Hemraj, moved their bodies around the flat and even stayed behind for drinks. The parents of Aarushi, Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, seem to have slept through an incredible amount of activity in their small flat. They claimed their bedroom door was shut and the air-conditioner turned on.

The murderer dragged Hemraj's body to the terrace using a sheet. The body was cursorily covered with a cooler lid and a bedsheet on a clothesline. The murderers then locked the terrace door and re-entered the house. They even seemed to know where the Talwars' mini-bar was-behind a wooden panel near the dining table. They drank from a bottle of whiskey and left it on the dining table. The bottle had bloodstains of both victims.

At around 3.43 a.m., the Internet router in Aarushi's room was switched off. That means that somebody entered her room nearly three hours after her murder. Whoever it was, failed to raise the alarm or even spot her body.

At 6.01 a.m., housemaid Bharti arrived. She rang the doorbell four times. Normally, Hemraj, the domestic help, would open the door, but this time Nupur opened it. Rajesh was also awake. This was unusual because the couple were late risers. The iron grill door at the entrance was locked from outside, so Nupur threw the keys from the balcony to Bharti. Three minutes later, when Bharti entered, she found the couple sobbing. "Dekho Hemraj ne kya kar diya (look what Hemraj has done)". Aarushi was found on the bed in a pool of blood. Bharti rushed out to inform the neighbours. Hemraj's room had an independent entry and opened into the flat from inside.

Another strange incident happened around this time. Nupur called Hemraj's cellphone from her landline at 6.01 a.m. The call was immediately disconnected. This means the dead servant's phone was attended by someone near the crime scene. Inexplicably, both Hemraj's and Aarushi's cellphones disappeared. Hemraj's phone was never found but Aarushi's Nokia N72 was found on a dirt track by a housemaid near Noida's Sadarpur area a fortnight later. Its memory was wiped clean. The cellphone was a crucial piece of evidence.

Aarushi would usually be up chatting with her friends until well past midnight. On the night of May 15, her cellphone was inactive after 9.10 p.m. At around midnight, her friend Anmol called on the Talwar landline because he could not get through her cellphone. There was no response. Anmol then sent an SMS to her cellphone at around 12.30. This SMS was not received by Aarushi's phone.

What were the Talwars doing before the murders? According to the CBI closure report, after reaching home at 9.30 p.m., they dined with Aarushi, then took a few pictures on a new digital camera they bought for Aarushi as a birthday gift and retired by around 11 p.m. Around this time, Nupur came to Aarushi's room to switch on the Internet router. Aarushi was reading a book.

The parents controlled access to Aarushi's room by locking it; the keys to her room would usually lie by Nupur's bedside. Nupur told the police that she was not sure whether she locked Aarushi's door the last time she went to her room. Rajesh received a call from the US on his landline at this time. This indicated that his ringer was not silent. He surfed the Internet, sent some emails, surveyed stock market sites and some dentistry sites. He sent his last email at 11.57 p.m. before presumably going to sleep.

The following morning, the bunch of keys to the flat and terrace were found on the bed in Hemraj's room by Nupur. Aarushi's bedroom keys were found in the living room. It was the only set of house keys, so it is still not clear how the Talwars were locked from the outside. The police arrived an hour later, at 7.15 a.m. They were met by a crowd inside. There were 15 people in the living room and five-six people in the Talwars' bedroom. Only Aarushi's room was empty. The crime scene was completely trampled upon.

The "Hemraj killed Aarushi" theory was gospel for a full day. Rajesh repeatedly told the police officers to pursue Hemraj and not to waste time in his flat. He dissuaded them from opening the locked terrace door and even offered the policemen Rs 25,000 to rush to Hemraj's village in Nepal.

The CBI and police mention they saw the concerted efforts by the Talwars to put the blame on Hemraj as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, doctors visiting the Talwars saw bloodstains on the handle of the locked terrace door. They also saw wiped bloody footmarks and blood stains on the upper staircase. Rajesh was asked for the keys but he went inside his residence after seeing the blood-stained door handle. The police failed to open the door for a full day.
Aarushi's body was taken for a post-mortem in Noida at about 9 a.m. and her last rites performed late in the evening. The Talwars' domestic staff showed undue haste in thoroughly cleaning up floors and walls of Aarushi's room with soap and water. Aarushi's blood-stained mattress was dumped on the terrace belonging to neighbour Puneet Tandon.

Meanwhile, when the post-mortem report was being written between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on May 16, a telephonic loop was created between Rajesh's elder brother Dinesh Talwar, family friend Dr Sushil Chaudhury, K.K. Gautam, a retired deputy superintendent of police, and an unidentified number. Dinesh would call Chaudhury who would call Gautam. The latter would dial an unidentified number. This sequence was then reversed. This loop was created six times that evening. The CBI claims that it was done to delete references to "rape" in Aarushi's post-mortem report.

Some 28 fingerprint samples were lifted from the scene of crime and handed over to the CBI on May 20. This was 10 days before the case was formally handed over to the CBI. Most of the fingerprints, especially those on the whiskey bottle, were smudged.

Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on May 17, this loop was repeated twice. Soon after these calls were made, Gautam arrived at the Talwar house and asked for the terrace door to be opened after examining the site of crime. Before calling the local police to open the door, he called a top Uttar Pradesh police officer and then his journalist friends so that the door is opened in media glare. Gautam told them that there was likely to be an interesting discovery.
When the local police arrived at the Talwar residence, the media was already there. The keys to the terrace were still missing, so the lock was broken to enter the terrace. Hemraj's body was discovered. However, vital clues were missing-the blood-soaked clothes of the perpetrators, the cloth used to clean the floor and the sheet on which Hemraj's body was dragged.

Was there a definite ploy to hide Hemraj's body? And why leave it on the terrace? CBI sleuths believe the body was hidden on the roof by the murderer for disposal later. But the media glare made it virtually impossible to spirit away the body, hence they changed the plan. It may prove as difficult for the CBI to walk away from one of India's most sensational whodunits.

The Arushi Hemraj murder mystery continues - Do we really want to know the truth?

Will this murder ever get solved or do we really want to know the truth? Already having received the biggest media attention the Arushi Talwar murder case is hard to make believe whether we will really know the truth ever. Or as many parents like me don't want the real truth to come out with the greatest panic & fear of one truth that could shake up the entire society and the possible impact it could have on many parents like me and their lovely children. The parents of Arushi Talwar every time on TV has one thing to say "we have lost our child". Even yesterday Rajesh Talwar was crying and saying the same in front of the TV reporter. Do they imply that by losing our child we have faced the Lord's justice so why punish us again? Does the court and law allow for humanity or look at the reality? The Talwars’ family friend from London (Patrick) commented on The Buck Stops Here at NDTV that this case needs to be looked into humanely. All these somewhere and somehow give us some impression that where the Talwar family wants this to lead to. As ordinary citizens we will look at the several questions that remain unanswered that night. 1.      A closed compact apartment of about 1,100 sq. ft. with one entrance to the terrace from inside the house. 2.      Four people inside the house that fateful night. 3.      One terrace that too locked. 4.      Parents sleeping in one room, daughter in another. Not certain whether Hemraj normally used to sleep inside the home or what. Understand his room is also accessible from inside the apartment. 5.      Main entrance door locked from inside. Do we really need a Agatha Christie here to solve this mystery? Sadly we don’t have one Agatha Christie in India. Or does anything else need to get proven against any of the four inside the house or are we all getting untold about some more. Now only two of the four survive. Yes for sure there could be several unheard truth and only known to the parents. All said what goes unpardonable against Arushi’s parents is how they could allow a male servant with a 14 year old at home alone while the parents were outside doing their professional duties as Doctors. Weren’t they responsible parents as they show they are now? How on earth could they have allowed this? How many of us will do the same let’s ask ourselves? Am sure many have changed their ways of thinking after the murder. We get scared now if the daughter sleeps alone in a separate room inside the house even. I know many such parents now. Look at the unanswered questions (courtesy TOI, 10th Feb, '11) 1.      Why were the first two investigating officers of Noida police, who played vital role in initial investigation, not cited as witnesses by CBI? 2.      Why did the bureau overlook the result of narco-analysis of the servants and call it unreliable? 3.      What is the explanation for conflicting theories given by the two CBI teams? 4.      Why has CBI not been able to establish the nature of murder weapon? 5.      After claiming earlier that Aarushi was not raped, why did CBI mention in the closure report that parents influenced the doctor not to mention rape in postmortem proceedings? 6.      Why did CBI not ascertain identity of the person who answered Hemraj's phone when Nupur Talwar called on his number the morning following the murder? 7.      Why did CBI not investigate how many hands Aarushi's phone changed in the past one year when it was missing? 8.      Why did CBI not investigate the shoe print found on the terrace near the door? Some questions investigators want answered. 1.      What, according to them, could have happened which led to the crime on that fateful night? 2.      The CBI claimed that the house where the crime took place was neither accessed by anyone from outside, nor had any of the occupants supposedly left till the information about the crime became public. How will they explain this? 3.      The Talwars, breaking news about the murder, had said ... "Look what Hemraj has done".... Why did the parents suspect Hemraj to be the killer when no one entered or left the house when the access was locked from inside and they were the only ones who had the keys? 4.      How will they explain the fact mentioned in Aarushi's autopsy report that efforts were made to clean the victim's vital parts? 5.      It has been established that an electronic equipment in the house was switched on and off more than a couple of times between 3am and 6am - more than three hours after the murder. Who could have operated that according to the Talwars? 6.      Talwars themselves suggested that the terrace must be searched for the sake of evidence which led to the recovery of Hemraj's body. Why did the Talwars refuse to recognize the body as that of Hemraj? 7.      On the day the crime took place, the Talwars on record, refused to be in possession of the keys for the lock hanging from the terrace door. By then, Hemraj's body had not been detected. How did they later provide investigators with the same keys?

"There are at least three such witnesses who have shared some relevant and significant information related to the crime and that information has been found to be true," said a member of the CBI probe team.

This case was at the height of media attention when the murders actually happened. Having spoken to many parents they all confess that they used be so embarrassed at the time when the murder actually happened so much so that every time the news came on TV they would look other way so as not to catch attention of their children. I must confess am one such parent. Also having spoken to several parents I am sure many want the real truth to remain a close secret fearing the worst truth that the parents were involved in the murder or even post murder. What impact it will have on our society? Will we all be the same again when facing our children at any time of disagreement with them? But at the same time many parents really feel let the real truth come out. May be the Talwars are actually innocent. If so, then it must be one of India's unresolved murder mysteries.

As the Talwars appear on court from 28th February and while the World Cup in India is on full swing and all media attention there am sure this case will still receive the high degree media attention. Who knows what we are likely to hear then? The question remains do we really want to hear the truth? We are many a scared lot of parents must confess!

May the good Lord rest the souls of Arushi & Hemraj at peace!