Aarushi’s parents found guilty

Rajesh Talwar and wife Nupur are taken to the court in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi yesterday.

Agencies/New Delhi

A dentist couple could face the death penalty after a judge yesterday convicted them of murdering their teenage daughter and a servant in a sensational trial that riveted the country.

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were due to be sentenced today after being found guilty of slitting the throats of Aarushi, 14, and their Nepalese live-in help Hemraj Banjade, with “clinical precision” at their home in an affluent New Delhi suburb in May 2008.

“The penalty is life imprisonment or death - there are only two sentences,” prosecutor R K Saini told a horde of reporters at the court complex in Ghaziabad, a satellite city of the capital.

Saini, who declared he had “done his duty,” said he would reveal today whether he would argue for the death penalty for the Talwars, who were immediately taken into custody.

Investigators alleged the Talwars killed Aarushi in a fit of rage when they found her with the 45-year-old servant in an “objectionable” situation, while the couple insist they are victims of a bungled police probe and a media witch-hunt.

Police suggested the double-murder was a so-called “honour killing.”

Delivering the much-awaited verdict at 3.25pm, Judge Shyam Lal of the Special Central Bureau of Investigation court said both accused have “flouted the ferocious penal law of the land” and therefore are liable to be convicted in the double murder case.

“Now is the time to say omega in this case. To perorate, it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused are perpetrators of the crime in the question. The parents are the best protectors of their own child that is in order of human nature but they have been freaks in the history of mankind where the father and mother became the killer of their own progeny,” the judge said in a 204-page judgment.

It added: “They have extirpated their own daughter who had hardly seen 14 summers of her life and the servant without compunction from terrestrial terrain in the breach of commandment “Thou shalt not kill”.

The trial came as India increasingly focuses on violent crimes against women following the fatal gang-rape of a student in Delhi last year that sparked national outrage.

The case has spawned a nation of armchair detectives debating every twist in the investigation, turned the Talwars into household names and polarised public opinion.

The prosecution conceded there was no forensic or material evidence against the couple, and based its case on the “last-seen theory” - which holds that the victims were last seen with the accused.

“We only have truth on our side, the facts and evidence as we knew them,” Vandana Talwar, Rajesh’s sister-in-law, told reporters.

“But we’re pitched against an organisation (the CBI) that believes and deals with fabrications, manipulations, with suppressing and hiding all the facts showing the parents are innocent,” she said.

Aarushi, who friends described as a chirpy, high-achieving student, was found on her bed with her throat cut one morning in May 2008.

Police initially blamed the missing domestic servant Hemraj - only to discover his decomposing body on the roof a day later.

His throat was also cut and he had a head wound.

Officers then arrested Rajesh Talwar’s dental assistant along with two other local servants - Hemraj’s friends - but they were freed due to lack of evidence.

The botched probe - investigators failed to seal the crime scene, allowing neighbours, relatives and journalists to swarm over it, or to find the second body for over 24 hours - prompted police to close the case in 2010, citing no substantial evidence.

The Talwars insisted they wanted the killers found and petitioned the court to reopen the case. Rajesh said in a recent interview Aarushi’s death had “been the deepest grief I have ever known.”

But police ended up charging the parents with murder as they became the centre of a lurid media frenzy.

Salacious news reports, based often on claims by unnamed police sources, appeared about their lives, demonising them as decadent - even part of a wife-swapping club - leading to criticism by that the Talwars were being subject to “trial by media.”

The case so obsessed the public that one man with no link to the case attacked Rajesh with a meat cleaver during a court appearance in 2011, leaving his cheek and hand deeply scarred.

After the verdict, the Talwars issued a statement saying they “refused to feel defeated” and would “continue to fight for justice.”

Naresh Yadav, a lawyer present in court, told reporters waiting outside that the couple and members of their family broke down in tears when the verdict was read out.

Top criminal lawyer, Rebecca John who is leading the defence and representing the Talwars for free, said the verdict would be appealed.

The Talwars have been “caught up in a nightmare,” John said.

“I will not rest until this couple’s names are cleared,” she said.

Verdict a miscarriage of justice: Talwar family

IANS/New Delhi

The Talwar family expressed dissatisfaction over the judgment of the special court yesterday holding Rajesh and Nupur Talwar guilty of killing their only daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj and said they would appeal to a higher court.

Rajesh’s brother Dinesh Talwar said: “He and the family are not happy with the judgment. We believe it’s a miscarriage of justice.”

Dinesh Talwar said the points proving innocence of the dentist couple were concealed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and were not produced in the court.

He also said that the scientific evidence collected by the CBI had also revealed that the killings were done by one of the three servants - Krishna, Vijay Mandal and Raj Kumar - but the agency did not inform the court about this.

“The golf stick number 5 which was presented before court as a clue by the CBI was not washed, but the investigating agency informed the court that the stick was washed,” said Dinesh.

“The CBI informed the court that Aarushi and Hemraj’s neck was slit by a scalpel, a surgical blade, but the injury was made with an object like cleaver,” he added.

Dinesh claimed there was evidence but was not produced in the court.

“We could not get justice today, now we will go to the higher court,” he said.

Aarushi’s aunt Vandana Talwar said she was very disappointed with the judgment.

“Rajesh and Nupur have been framed because of their innocence,” she said.

Rajesh and Nupur have been kept in separate special cells at the Dasna Jail, an official said.

“The Talwar couple has been kept in separate special cells, which will be out of reach for other inmates. Due to security reasons, they will be kept separate from other inmates for some days,” Dasna Jail Superintendent Viresh Raj Sharma said.

He said Nupur has been kept inside the women’s barracks but her cell is separate from other inmates while Rajesh is in a separate cell in a special barrack.

“After their medical examination, both of them were taken to their respective cells. Each of them have been given a blanket, a rug, a mug and a plate to eat,” Sharma said.

If they are guilty, they should be punished, say neighbours

IANS/Noida

Jal Vayu Vihar, the placid, middle-class residential neighbourhood where Rajesh and Nupur Talwar had a nice house and spent many happy years with their only child Aarushi, wore a cloak of silence yesterday after a court pronounced the parents guilty of the murder of their daughter and domestic help. There was initial shock among the neighbours, which changed to disbelief and then outrage.

The couple lived in Noida, a burgeoning city of shining corporate buildings and towering residential condominiums that is part of the National Capital Region but geographically part of Uttar Pradesh. But they shifted out following intense media glare over the many dramatic twists and turns in the case that turned the heat on them.

The house is now locked up as the couple moved to the Hauz Khas in south Delhi a couple of years ago. Initially none of the neighbours was ready to talk about the sensational murder.

But they soon opened up - to share their anger and their incredulity that the parents, who were highly-regarded dentists could murder their only daughter.

“Whatever happened was indeed sad. Talwars were my neighbours, but they should be punished if they committed such an act,” one of the neighbours said.

Sarita, a washerwoman in the area, said: “I was present here that day. Aarushi was a sweet girl, and if her parents are killers then they should be hanged.”

Another neighbour said it is for the couple to contemplate about what they have done. “We were not so close to the Talwar family, but I want to say one thing. If Rajesh and his wife are guilty, then they surely know it.”

“Any punishment by the court does not matter. They need to contemplate among themselves about what they have done, and what their life has become.”

“For them, there is no meaning for their life anymore whether they are sent to jail or left (by the court).”