GIST: "A court will take a call tomorrow on whether
Rajesh and Nupur Talwar should have been convicted for the murder of
their teenage daughter Aarushi. The dentist couple -- who were found
guilty and given life term in jail by a special court in 2013 for the
country's most gripping whodunit -- had appealed against the order in
the Allahabad high court. The court, which has been examining the evidence, will say tomorrow whether the lower court came to a correct conclusion. Fourteen-year-old
Aarushi had been found murdered in her bed at her home in Noida, near
Delhi, in May 2008. She had been hit on the head and her throat was
slit, possibly with a surgical scalpel, the Noida police had said. The
main suspect, the police said, was the domestic help Hemraj. But two
days later, his partially decomposed body was recovered from the terrace
of the house. As
the Uttar Pradesh police drew flak over shoddy investigation in case
that had the drawn the attention of the nation, then chief minister
Mayawati handed over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Two
CBI teams that investigated the case, however, came to contradictory
conclusions. The first team said one Krishna, a friend of Hemraj,
committed the murders as Hemraj had objected to plans to assault the
teen. But the idea was junked after Ashwani Kumar took over as the CBI chief. The
second probe team filed a closure report before a special court in
Ghaziabad, saying while the murder could have been committed by the
Talwars in a fit of rage after seeing the teen with Hemraj, there was
insufficient evidence against them. Aarushi and Hemraj, the CBI said,
had been bludgeoned to death, the weapon was Rajesh Talwar's golf club. The court rejected the report and ordered the Talwars to face trial. The
defence had argued that the Talwars were innocent and the case against
them had been built entirely on circumstantial evidence. There was no
proof of sexual assault and the murder weapon was a kukri (a large
double-edged knife that originated from Nepal). Accused of murder
and obliterating evidence, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were awarded life
sentence by the special court on November 26, 2013. They appealed in
against the order in the high court. In October 2015, after the
release of a Bollywood movie based on the murder, "Talvar", the officer
who led the initial CBI investigation, Arun Kumar, said he believes
Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were innocent. The Talwars had spent
their 25th wedding anniversary in jail. On the day, December 18, 2013,
Rajesh Talwar had noted in his diary, "Could anybody imagine where we
would be on our 25th anniversary? No Aaru, no house, no clinic, no
money, and sitting in jail for something we haven't done."
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/court-decision-tomorrow-on-appeal-of-aarushi-talwar-s-parents-1761630
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
