By Shivani Singh:
May 17, 2008 — a teenager Aarushi Talwar was found brutally murdered.
December 29, 2010 — Two and a half years down the line, the CBI files a closure report.
The Noida double murder case still remains unsolved and the CBI has filed a closure report giving the explanation that it cannot be solved due to lack of conclusive evidence. In its closure report, the CBI has named Dr. Rajesh Talwar, father of the victim, as the lone suspect.
The Talwars have denied all allegations and claimed that they are all false and that the CBI has condemned them for life. Their lawyers had filed a petition against the closure report to reopen the case but the Ghaziabad court rejected their plea stating that it’s too premature to file such a petition. The court also asked the CBI as to why it was in such haste to close this case. The court ordered the CBI to submit the relevant documents to the court and the next hearing is scheduled to be held on January 7, 2011. The court also said that the closure report must be made available to the Talwars.
The closure report includes that naming of Dr. Talwar as the prime suspect is based on the “circumstantial evidence” which is very strong, so much so that Dr. Talwar could have been charge sheeted if he had not been a parent. But the CBI doesn’t deny the fact that their suspect can be innocent too.
The report also states that the crime scene was “dressed up” before the police was called, then when the police arrived at the crime scene the Talwars tipped them off to catch Hemraj who according to them was at the station. The lackadaisical approach of the police authorities leaving the crime scene was very disturbing to know. The report also denied the involvement of any of the three arrested —Vishnu, Raj Kumarand Krishna. The lawyers of the three are now planning to file a case against the CBI for defamation and arrest of their clients without evidence.
Justice has been fading away in our society from the very beginning; more than 90% of the people are being deprived of justice. Justice in our country will remain a dream only. Take the Aarushi case or even the Babri Masjid Case. Many opinions rise up to say it’s a case of honour killing. There have been so many astonishing allegations revealed in the closure report like the attempt to fix the post-mortem report to ensure that there is no mention of rape and this was done by a doctor who was a friend of Dr. Talwar’s, the missing of vaginal swab, the matching of the size of the golf club with the blows on both Aarushi and Hemraj’s head, the slitting of the throat by a surgical instrument, no evidence of forced entry of any intruder in the house, behaviour of the Talwars on the morning of May 17, ignorance of identifying the dead body of Hemraj initially — all makes one think that Dr. Rajesh Talwar may be the one. It seemed as an open and close case but the truant attitude of the UP police — failure of securing the crime scene— made the case more complicated.
The sudden decision of the CBI to close the Aarushi case after preliminary investigation is questionable as well. CBI has cracked cases like the Sister Abhaya murder case which was handed to it after 17 years when all the evidence had disappeared and witness dead. They did not ask for the closure of this case on plea of delay or destruction of evidence. There is more to it than meets the eye.
This case has also raised my doubts about the journalism industry. The media trial that was carried out when the UP police arrested Dr. Talwar was embarrassing for me as an Indian. The English news channels objectively reported the news while the Hindi news channels went on to blame the Talwars as the culprits and speculated absolute trash. We could clearly see the divide, the political intervention, instead of reportage of the truth; they went on to take sides for TRPs. Are the ethics not present in Indian journalism anymore? There were cases of overkill by some of the media, character assassination of the already brutally murdered teenager. Is this what the media has come to?
I think that even after two and a half years of investigation there still remains unanswered questions like why didn’t the police tap the phone lines of the Talwars from the day of murder/prosecute the Talwars for destructing the evidence, CBI says that when the maid came inside the house Talwars started screaming & told her, “See what Hemraj has done!” How were they so sure that Hemraj did it? It is also said that Mrs. Talwar threw the keys from First floor to Maid. So if the doors were locked how did the criminal enter? The criminal must be a very influential person.
Now that the case has been filed for closure, nobody really knows what can be done to undo the harm it already has done and the doubts of many Indians about the Talwars will remain buried, unless the court rejects the demand for closure, which it must.