July 10, 2008
Arushi Murder another Shawshank Redemption
For me the Arushi Murder case always looked like another version of Shawshank Redemption (you will under stand if you have seen one of the all time best movies Shawshank Redemption).
This is how the case started.
1. 14 Year old Arushi is found murdered in her bedroom in Noida.
2. Body was found in the morning. Parents say that they were in the next room but did not hear any screams in the night, so they were unaware.
3. Father of Arushi, Dr.Talwar says that he had taken sleeping pills and also had a few drinks in the night, so he was fast asleep.
4. The domestic help Hemraj is missing, he is nowhere to be seen.
Now the needle of suspicion is pointing on Hemraj and police begins searching for Hemraj. Meanwhile, Noida police never takes proper forensic information from the murder location like finger prints, blood stain samples. They don’t even lock the room so that evidence is not destroyed. They just assume Hemraj is the murderer and start looking for him.
After 2 days it turns out that the dead body of Hemraj is lying on the terrace of Dr. Talwar’s house. Now the Noida police is stumped. They don’t know what they can do. Now it’s all a puzzle. Noida police starts building a theory which can explain the murder. They seize Dr. Talwars computer and send it for forensic examination.
Here is how the theory of Noida police goes (which is really very circumstantial, just the way Andy is convicted in Shawshank Redemption).
Theory of Noida police: Dr. Talwar and his daughter Arushi had a very bad relationship and Arushi was a ‘bad charactered girl’. Dr. Talwar comes home on the fateful night and finds Hemraj and Arushi in a compromising position and gets very angry. He then takes Hemraj to terrace and murders him. Later he comes back down, takes a few drinks and proceeds to his daughter’s room where she is sleeping and murders her. Later he calls the police in the morning and tells them that Hemraj has murdered his daughter. His plan is to put the blame on Hemraj and then to dispose off his body in a way that it is never found so that the case is never solved. Noida police also says that there is one more reason for this murder. Dr. Talwar had an affair with family friend Mrs. Durani and Arushi had objected to it, so he murdered her.
They try to come up with some ridiculous evidence:
1. They make an email which is more than a year old, written by Arushi to her dad public. The email is something like ‘dad I am sorry that I did this, please forgive me, I will never do it again’. Police say this shows that she was into bad things which explains that Dr. Talwar didn’t like his daughter. What a ridiculous explanation. For me, this email is just something which you can always expect a teenager to have written to her father.
2. Noida police claims that Dr.Talwar has confessed and he has signed a confession. It later turns out that, after the case is handed over to CBI, Noida police could never produce this signed letter! What heights can police go to prove their theory!!
For me, the above theory holds so many flaws.
1. Is it possible that a father will murder his only child for a frivolous reason that she objected to him having extra marital affair (and beware, this affair is just an allegation by police with no proof).
2. How did the police conclude that Arushi had a ‘bad character’?
3. It was also evident that more than one person was involved in murdering Hemraj, so this killing in ‘fit of rage’ theory doesn’t hold good.
4. Why is Noida police just investigating on one theory, why are they not examining other possibilities?
Now after the CBI took over the investigation some progress has happened on the case in a scientific manner. It does appear that Krishna, the compounder at Dr.Talwar’s clinic has confessed that the murder was carried out by him and Rajkumar who is a domestic help at Durrani’s home. Based on confessions of Krishna & Rajkumar (as printed in a section of media), this is how the new theory of how things happened goes.
Theory based on confessions: Krishna had been openly critisized for his bad work by Dr.Talwar in front of many people and Dr.Talwar had also threatened to remove Krishna from his clinic for his goof-up during a surgery. Krishna felt insulted and he wanted to take revenge on the short tempered Dr. Talwar. Krishna knew that Dr. Talwar lover his only daughter Arushi very much. Krishna, Hemraj and Rajkumar were mutual friends. All the 3 had got together at the servant quarters at Dr.Talwars place, which is where Hemraj lived and were having drinks. Rajkumar confesses that he had sexual intentions on Arushi. Krishna says even he would want something bad to happen to her as he hates Dr.Talwar. Since Hemraj doesn’t really object to these two friends of his, they proceed towards Arushi’s room where she is sleeping. Hemraj is probably aware that Dr.Talwar and wife sleep with A/C on with closed doors and they generally don’t realize what happens outside their room in the night. Rajkumar now tries to force himself on Arushi and she retaliates. Krishna probably had different intentions, he takes out knife from his pocket and slits Arushi’s throat (remember that all 3 are in drunken state). It probably happened so fast to Arushi that she was totally terrified and never had a chance to scream. Now Hemraj knows that he will be the primary suspect and tells his friends that there is no way to escape this and he is going to tell it all. Krishna calls him to the terrace so that they can plan what can be done next. On the terrace Krishna and Rajkumar murder Hermaj and they leave the place.
Now there is no witness & now since nobody has really seen Rajkumar & Hemraj visiting Dr.Talwars place they are completely out of the police Radar.
It just so happened that CBI realized that there were more than 1 murderers in the house, so they were trying to think who could have assisted Dr. Talwar (based on their assumption that he is the culprit). Since Krishna used to work for Dr.Talwar from long time and he also knew Hemraj, they interrogate him & when the suspicion grew on him and a narco test is done on him, the truth comes to light.
For me this theory looks very genuine. The biggest questionable object in this theory and the reason why Dr.Talwar is probably why still behind the bar is that he was at home on the fateful night and he never realized that two murders have taken place at his house. But I think it is understandable. Has it never happened to you that you are in a hotel room with A/C on and have locked my room and don’t realize if few people passed in the hotel corridor. I also know many people who sleep so deep that sometimes they can’t even hear a loud noise when they are sleeping. And as Dr.Talwar claimed that he took sleeping pills, I don’t think it’s very unreasonable that one would take sleeping pill before he slept. There are lot of people around with sleeping disorder who would take sleeping pill when they sleep. I don’t know about Mr.Talwar, either she also uses some sleep inducing drugs or she is also somebody who is not very sensitive while sleeping who cannot realize little sound coming in the house. And it is very much possible that Arushi was murdered so swiftly that there was no scream and since Hemraj was taken to the terrace with his own consent, I am sure nobody could hear him getting murdered.
Now if the second theory is really true, just imagine the plight of Dr.Talwar and wife. They had their loved daughter who was born after several years after marriage through IVF method is found murdered. Even before they could digest the fact, Dr.Talwar is arrested and put behind the bars. Police start making false statements saying ‘he has confessed’, ‘Arushi had bad character’, ‘Dr.Talwar had affair with family friend Mrs.Durrani’ which are all baseless allegations. Just imagine the mental state of Dr.Talwar who is behind the bars for no fault of his, I am sure he is totally broken and will take a long time to recover from the turn that his life has taken.
In between Media also does lot of character assassination of Dr.Talwar and wife. One section of media published report saying that Dr.Talwar had booked room in a hotel on that night and was not at home & he is just faking that he was at home. This is totally a baseless allegation for which no proof was found by CBI. Has Indian media lost moral values? I am sure there are sections in Indian media which never had moral values.
Till now CBI has not got even a single evidence on Dr.Talwar and my big question is Why is Dr.Talwar still behind the bars from close to two months without even a single evidence against him?
I do realize that the job of CBI was always difficult to start with because the case was handed over to them almost 10 days after the murder. Till that time Noida police had not collected any forensic evidence from the murder location like finger prints, blood stains, etc, they did not even lock the room where the murder took place, so Talwars carried out pooja and other ceremonies in the room unwittingly and lot of evidences got destroyed. The best thing to happen during this case is the handing over of case to CBI, otherwise I am sure Noida police would have put all efforts to make it another Shawshank Redemption.
Do check these links to get updates on the case –>
