Thursday, August 7, 2008

TALWARS WERE OUT PARTYING ON NIGHT OF KILLINGS

TALWARS WERE OUT PARTYING ON NIGHT OF KILLINGS
(Courtesy Mail Today, New Delhi)
CBI sources say Arushi’s parents were at a hotel when murders took place
By Ishan singh New Delhi
THE CENTRAL Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seems convinced Dr Rajesh Talwar and his wife Nupur weren’t home when their daughter Arushi and domestic help Hemraj were murdered on the night of May 15. Investigations show that the Talwars were home till about 11.42 pm and Dr Rajesh Talwar was indeed on the computer surfing the Net, as he has claimed. But he and his wife left their Jalvayu Vihar house in Noida thereafter, for a party hosted by their high- profile friends at an upscale South Delhi hotel. Sources in the investigating agency say they have checked the hotel’s records and found that over a dozen rooms were booked for the party on the night of May 15. The sleuths zeroed in on the hotel after they found concrete evidence to suggest that the Talwar couple had left their flat soon after midnight on May 15 and returned around 5am the next day. Arushi, who had dinner with her family the night before, was murdered when her parents were away. So was Hemraj. His body dumped on the terrace. But if that’s so, the question that comes to mind is why does Dr Talwar continue to languish in prison for over a month? That’s because the CBI has reasons to believe that Dr Talwar has been withholding important case details and perhaps had a hand in destroying evidence related to the murders. The sources say the Talwar couple has been persistently refusing to come clean on the May 15 party and has stonewalled every effort to extract details on what this get- together was about and who were present there. This, the sleuths say, is curious. It is entirely possible that the motive behind the murders is hidden here. The line that the couple has thus far taken is that they were at home and had slept through the twin murders. But when quizzed about the party, both Talwar and his wife have been dodging a response. Repeated polygraph tests, too, haven’t helped. In fact, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar have undergone two lie- detector tests each. They have come up with conflicting statements on the sequence of events on May 15- 16 during each of these sessions. “It is possible that they have been shying away from sharing the details of the party to save their reputation. Also, their friends present there might have pressured the couple to clamp up,” aCBI source said. This explains the CBI’s constant crib also in court that the Talwars weren’t cooperating with the probe. Another missing link in the case is Arushi’s mobile phone. The phone, missing since the night of the murder, could hold the murder motive. It is possible that the murdered 14- year- old could have used it to shoot some pictures which Krishna, Dr Talwar’s compounder, and Rajkumar, Dr Anita Durani’s help, was trying to get their hands on. The phone could have come in handy to blackmail Dr Talwar’s influential friends. The other hypothesis the investigators are working on relates to some of Dr Talwar’s influential friends and acquaintances commissioning the domestic helps to obtain Arushi’s mobile phone, which could have contained some photographs of particular interest to them. The investigators have forensic evidence to suggest that Arushi’s assailants had afree run at the Talwars’ Jalvayu Vihar flat on the night of May 15. The outer face of the door to the girl’s room had blood stains implying it was left ajar when she was being murdered. “It’s not possible that the killers, when they struck, left the door open. Had the parents been at home, they would have been only a few feet away in the adjoining room. The spot where Hemraj’s body was found on the terrace was directly above the Talwars’ bedroom. Had they been in their room they would have heard a man struggling to save himself from his killers. All the more so because there is enough evidence to suggest Hemraj had grappled with his assailants,” the CBI officer said. Their behaviour when the maid came around 6am on May 16 too was suspicious. The couple had labelled Hemraj the killer even without having checked his room or looking for him on the terrace. The theory that the Talwars returned home only at 5am on May 16 gains currency also because the terrace door was found locked and CBI feels that Dr Talwar had put that lock after discovering Hemraj’s body. “If the killers, as we believe, used the terrace to flee after murdering Arushi and Hemraj, then who locked the door of the terrace where Hemraj’s body lay for almost 36 hours before it was discovered?” he added. The court, while dismissing Dr Talwar’s bail plea, had wondered why the doctor hadn’t searched his terrace even though he had labelled Hemraj as Arushi’s killer on May 16. The sequence of events leading to the discovery of the body suggest that the Talwars had left for Hardwar to conduct Arushi’s last rites ashort while before K. K. Gautam, a former UP Police officer, landed up at their residence to offer condolences. The CBI seems of the view that the discovery of Hemraj’s body on the morning of May 17 could have been orchestrated. “Dinesh Talwar, Dr Rajesh’s brother, was not shocked when he saw the body after the police team broke open the terrace door. The Talwar couple had also refused to cut short their journey and identify Hemraj’s body,” he said. But who murdered Arushi and Hemraj and why? The CBI says the answer to this lies in the arrest of Krishna and Rajkumar. Another domestic help of the Talwars’ neighbour, Vijay Mandal, is being subjected to scientific tests and could be arrested soon. Krishna’s confession before the CBI that he took a khukri to the Talwar flat on the night of the Arushi-Hemraj twin murder is important. Rajkumar has confessed to his deep involvement in the twin killings and that he had destroyed Arushi’s mobile phone. Krishna, during his narco test earlier, had said Rajkumar had “eyed” Arushi and tried to sexually assault her before the murders.

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