In the year 2019, I was fortunate enough to spend six weeks in India near Chennai for an internship. I was amazed by the beauty of the country and the generosity of the people. India attained independence from the British Crown on August 15, 1947 and became a sovereign democratic republic on January 26, 1950. The Constitution of India provides for a quasi-federal system of government. India has a high crime rate and is rated 2nd in the world for murder. India has an incredibly unique legal system and is categorized as a hybrid legal system having elements of civil law, common law, equitable law, and customary and religious laws. The main sources of law are the Constitution, statutes, customary law, and judicial decisions.
Now the Crime Story, Aarushi Talwar who was born May 24, 1994, was a 13-year-old student at the Delhi Public School, her parents who were both Dentists, Dr. Rajesh Talwar and Dr. Nupur Talwar all lived in an apartment together in Noida, India. Yam Prasad Banjade, better known as Hemraj, was 45 years old and the Talwar family's live-in domestic help and cook. Hemraj was originally from Nepal. On May 15th, it was the second to last day of school, and Aarushi was picked up from school at 1:30 pm, her mother returned home from work around 7:30 pm and the father came home via his driver around 9:30 pm. The driver then gave the keys to Hemraj who made dinner for the family tonight. After dinner Aarushi’s parents decided to give her an early birthday gift of a digital camera, they tested out the camera for a bit and left Aarushi’s room around 10:10 pm. Her mom later came into her room to switch on the internet router and Aarushi was reading both. Aarushi’s father then answered some phone calls and sent an email. The last time the internet router was used was at 11:41 pm. The murders are thought to have happened between midnight and 1:00 am according to postmortem reports.
At 6:01 a.m. on May 16, the doorbell rang. Housemaid Bharti was usually let inside by Hemraj, but he was strangely missing in action. Bharti had only been working with the family for six days. She rang the bell three more times then called Hemraj's mobile phone, but the call was abruptly cut. When she tried calling him again, the phone appeared to have been switched off. She was finally greeted by Nupur, who was on the balcony. This was extremely unusual, as Aarushi Talwar’s parents were known to sleep in because they worked the evening shifts at the office. Hemraj was the one who took care of letting servants or guests in. The gate at the entrance was locked from the outside, so Nupur had to throw Bharti a set of keys. Rajesh was also awake which was odd and when he entered the living room and saw a near-empty Scotch whisky bottle on the dining table, which surprised him. He asked Nupur who had kept the bottle there, and then alarmed, asked her to check Aarushi's room.
When they entered Aarushi’s room, they saw Aarushi's dead body lying on her bed. Rajesh started screaming, while Nupur remained silent. This is when the maid of the family made it into the home and when she entered the apartment both of them were crying. Nupur asked her to come inside Aarushi's room. Bharati stood at the entrance of the room, as Nupur walked inside. Aarushi's body lay on her bed; it was covered with a flannel blanket. Nupur pulled the blanket, and Bharati saw that Aarushi was lying on her bed, covered in a sheet in her blue pajamas, a schoolbag on her head, and her throat slit. Both the parents immediately blamed Hemraj for Aarushi's murder in front of the maid. Bharati walked out of the apartment to inform the neighbors. The Talwars called their family and friends. A neighbor who lived one floor below the Talwars asked the apartment security guard to inform the police. By the time the police arrived, there were 15 people in the living room and 5-6 people in the Talwars' bedroom; only Aarushi's room was vacant. The crime scene had been "completely trampled upon". The story of a murder in an affluent neighborhood also attracted many journalists, who gathered around the house by 8 am and police had not contained the crime scene. In fact, the media was even let into the home.
The police told the Talwars that it was an open and shut case. Hemraj was still missing, the media reported that Hemraj had drunk whisky, broke into Aarushi’s room, assaulted her, hit her with a knife, and cut her throat. Police announced a 20,000 rupees (around $400) award for a tip leading to his arrest. An autopsy was conducted by noon that day and she was cremated around 4 pm that day. The Talwar staff was told to clean the room, kinda like it was clockwork, over and done. The next day some visitors noticed blood spots leading to the terrace, the terrace had been locked the day before and no one thought much of it. Eventually, the police were persuaded to investigate the terrace, but they could not get the key to the terrace door. A policeman later testified that when he asked Rajesh for the terrace key, he "went into the house and did not come out for a long time." They left the matter alone until the next day when a retired police officer broke the door to gain access. s the group entered the terrace, they saw bloody drag marks. A body "in an advanced stage of putrefaction" was discovered lying in a pool of blood at about 10:30 am. No one could identify the body, and Rajesh and Nupur were called to return home as they were on their way to lay Aarushi’s ashes. Later the body was identified as Hemraj who also had a slit throat and blunt force trauma to the head. It was estimated that 90% of evidence was lost due to police mismanagement. All the police really had to go on was the bodies.
According to the police, Hemraj had told some of his friends about a threat to his life. A social worker Usha Thakur confirmed that five days before his murder, Hemraj had told her that he feared for "his life and that of some of his near and dear ones". Some other evidence that police poorly collected was that Hemraj’s postmortem showed that he had not eaten dinner that night but there was a plate prepped for him in the kitchen. Hemraj’s bed was still made which showed that he had not gone to bed that night. A Ballantine's Scotch whisky bottle with Aarushi’s and Hemraj’s bloodstains was found on the dining table. The bottle was seized on the morning of May 16th, but no clear fingerprints could be recovered from it. Aarushi's camera had photographs numbered 13, 15, 20, 22, and 23: this indicates that at least 23 photographs had been taken using the camera, out of which 18 had been deleted. The CBI (which is like the American FBI) considered the possibility of the photographs having been deleted by someone other than Aarushi. At around 3:43 am, nearly 3 hours after Aarushi's murder, the Internet router in Aarushi's room switched off. The CBI produced a technical expert who stated that the switching on/off of the router after a long gap can only happen due to either a power cut or manual intervention. There was no power cut on the night of the murders, a fact attested to by the electricity department.
So who killed Aarushi and Hemraj? One person who came to light was the old domestic worker Vishnu Sharma. Hemraj was only supposed to be a temporary worker while Vishnu was on vacation but when he returned the Talwar’s liked Hemraj better and decided to fire Vishnu. The police suspected that an angry Vishnu might have killed Hemraj for usurping his job; Aarushi might have been killed for being a witness. Vishnu was taken into custody, along with former servants of the Talwars. However, the police were unable to find any evidence that connected him to the murders. It was confirmed that he was in Nepal on the day of the murders.
On May 21st, a clear suspect had come into play, Dr. Rajesh Talwar and Dr. Nupur Talwar. There were no signs of forced entry, Aarushi’s bed was only 8 feet from her parents, how could they not hear what was happening to Aarushi. On the morning of 16 May, Rajesh asked the police to stop wasting time in his house and pursue Hemraj instead. He even offered to cover the cost of the police's visit to Hemraj's native village in Nepal. Rajesh ignored the police's request for the key to the terrace door. An attempt had been made to hide Hemraj's body and when it was discovered Rajesh said he could not identify it. The family cremated Aarushi the very day of her murder. A friend of the family asked the medical examiner to remove any mention of sexual assault from the post-mortem report.
According to the police, Hemraj knew about an extramarital affair that Rajesh was having and after dinner the night of May 15th Rajesh brought Hemraj out to the balcony to discuss the issue and ended up murdering him and somehow Aarushi saw the murder so Rajesh had to kill her because dead people don’t talk. On 23 May, Rajesh, and Nupur were taken to the Police Lines area, where they were split up. Nupur was put in a room with her cousin and a woman constable, while Rajesh was arrested and taken to a local magistrate. Rajesh was taken to the Dasna jail and later claimed that he was not allowed to make any phone calls, and police threatened him into signing a confession on the way to the jail. Rajesh claimed that he was being framed by the police to cover up their own botched-up investigation. The case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 31 May at the request of Aarushi’s parents.
According to the Talwar’s, the idea of Aarushi and Hemraj having a relationship and that of Rajesh’s extra-marital affair was planted by Krishna Thadarai, an assistant at the Talwars’ dental clinic. Rajesh stated that two days before the murders, he had reprimanded Krishna for making an incorrect dental cast.
On 7 June, Krishna was detained on suspicion. He was arrested on 13 June. Meanwhile, lie detection tests conducted on Rajesh and Nupur Talwar; both turned out to be inconclusive. The second set of tests did not find any evidence of deception on their part. During questioning, Krishna discussed an accomplice, Rajkumar, who was a domestic servant for the neighbors. On 27 June, Rajkumar was arrested on suspicion. On June 30th, 2008, Vijay Mandal, another friend of Krishna, was reported as a suspect in the media. Vijay was a driver and domestic help for Talwars’ neighbor and was arrested on July 11th. During a press conference on 11 July 2008, Arun Kumar stated that the case was still unsolved. He stated that no evidence had been found against Rajesh Talwar, but also added that the CBI had not given him a “clean chit”. He stated that Krishna, Rajkumar, and Vijay seemed to be the prime suspects, based on the narco tests, but CBI had not found any corroborative evidence against them because they all gave different versions of what happened that night. Rajesh Talwar was released later, for lack of evidence, after having spent 50 days in prison. The three other suspects were arrested, but the drug-induced confession was not enough to charge them. On top of that, all three men had strong alibis, the three men were released in September after the police could not find any solid evidence against them. In September 2009, a new CBI team took hold of the investigation and in December 2010, they named Rajesh Talwar as the suspect.
In January 2011, the Talwars filed a petition protesting against the CBI’s attempt to close the case, their petition was rejected. The Talwars trial began on May 11, 2013, the defense lawyers focused on opposing the clean chit given to Krishna, Rajkumar, and Vijay; providing counter-arguments to the points that raised suspicions on their clients; and pointing out lapses in the investigation. The states sequence of events was the Rajesh heard some noise and went to Hemraj’s room, he did not find Hemraj in his room but heard some noise coming from Aarushi’s room. He picked up a golf club stick from Hemraj’s room and rushed to Aarushi’s room. He saw Aarushi and Hemraj in an objectionable position on Aarushi’s bed. In a fit of anger, Rajesh hit Hemraj’s head with the golf club. When he tried to hit him a second time, Hemraj moved and Aarushi was hit. Awakened by the noise, Nupur Talwar came to Aarushi’s room. By this time, both the victims were near-dead and they both decided to hide evidence and make it appear that Hemraj killed Aarushi then they would dispose of Hemraj’s body later. On 25 November 2013, a special CBI court held Rajesh and Nupur Talwar guilty of the two murders and were given life sentences the next day. In January 2014, the Talwars challenged the decision in the Allahabad High Court. On 12 October 2017, the High Court acquitted the Talwars of all charges, stating that the evidence presented by the CBI against the Talwars was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore they must be given benefit of the doubt instead of being convicted based solely on suspicion. Today, no one has been convicted of the double homicide.
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