STORY: " Aarushi Talwar Case: Parent Trap "Until we find the real killers, there is no closure for us.” In conversation with Rajesh and Nupur Talwar," by reporter Aekta Kapoor, published by 'Newslaundry' on November 19, 2015.
GIST: For Rajesh and Nupur, charged for the murder of
their own daughter by the CBI, the country’s premier internal
investigative agency, there is life before Aarushi and life after
Aarushi – and it doesn’t really feel like it belongs to the same set of
people. “We had the perfect life, full of happiness and laughter”, says
Nupur, 47. “And then after Aarushi, it’s like the thread of our lives
has gone unravelling – it’s all just downhill from there. It seems
surreal.”Their living room in fact has several other large framed photos of
Aarushi at different ages. “People would remark on Aarushi’s pretty
looks, and I would tell Nupur, let’s put some
teeka on her to
ward off the evil eye”, says Rajesh. There also hangs a large painting
copied from Aarushi’s photograph published in the newspapers – there is
gentleness and peace in the painting. The Talwars don’t know who made
it. “Someone left a package at our doorstep when we were out; it was
this painting. Out of all those people out there who judge us and hate
us based on what the police and media have said, there are still a few
good souls who care about what we’re going through”, says Nupur. Rajesh and Nupur met at Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi and
married in 1990. Aarushi was born four years later. Rajesh had no
interest outside of his work and Nupur was happy to balance her career
as an orthodontist with childcare duties once Aarushi was born. In a
sense, their after-work life revolved around her activities. “On
Saturdays, Rajesh would never work after lunch. He’d take Aarushi to the
movies, for shopping, for playing something somewhere”, says Nupur. “We
took a conscious decision to have only one child and give her the best
of what we’d got. Aarushi was our biggest achievement”, adds Rajesh.
“She was my life. After her, my life is finished.” There is the grief of losing one’s child in a horrific way, and then
there’s the grief of being accused of it. After a chaotic few days of
disorganised investigation,
botched evidence, uncontrolled public access to the
murder site and a
cremation
dictated by the elders in the family, Rajesh was arrested for his
daughter’s murder. “The Noida police told us, ‘Don’t speak to the
media’, so we didn’t. But then a week later when they came to arrest me,
we realised the media had blindly believed what the police said,
without hearing our side of the story”, says Rajesh.The tale only got murkier and murkier. Rajesh spent two months in
prison before getting bail. Nupur spent five. The Uttar Pradesh police,
led by Meerut Zone’s Inspector General Gurdarshan Singh, held a hasty
press conference to announce that Rajesh Talwar had been arrested for
killing his daughter as she had found out he had been having an affair.
“(Rajesh) found Aarushi and Hemraj in an objectionable, though not
compromising, position. He killed her in a fit of rage even though he is
as characterless as his daughter was”, said IG Singh. This last
judgment appeared to have been reached because the child was active on
social networking sites and used a cellphone. A major part of the problem the Talwars faced was in the wide gulf in
perception between the modern and the conservative Indias that coexist
uneasily. “Aarushi had been reading Chetan Bhagat’s
The 3 Mistakes of My Life
on the night of her murder. I told the police to take it with them in
case they could use it for fingerprinting purposes or whatever. They
found the title very suggestive and gave each other looks, asking me if
it meant she had made three mistakes”, says Rajesh. “Aarushi had a sleepover planned for her 14
th birthday on
May 24”, adds Nupur. “But when I mentioned this to the CBI officer
assigned to the case, he was scandalised. ‘What’s a sleepover? What do
they do? Are there any adults?’ What can I tell him? That the girls put
on music and dance crazily and raid the fridge while we wait for them to
fall asleep?” In the old world of the UP police and the CBI, there is
no room for Orkut, Facebook, endless phone conversations and teenage
sleepovers. It seems that anyone who goes there is suspect. While the authorities played their part in creating this image of a
murderer father, an
extramarital affair and their “
characterless” daughter, the media was equally
quick
to catch on. “It’s all about TRPs”, says Rajesh vehemently, sharing
that his lawyer was offered Rs 2 lakh by a reporter for an exclusive
interview with the Talwars – to be televised no doubt with much
advertising. “Even when the first CBI team handling the case (led by
Arun Kumar) got evidence that Krishna (a former employee at Rajesh’s
dental clinic and Hemraj’s friend) and two others were
responsible for the murder, the media only sought to highlight the UP police’s theories of the ‘monster parents’”, he says, referring to
reports including an
article
and tweet by columnist Shobhaa De at the time. “She (De) actually
suggested that Aarushi was not our biological child!” he says. “The
doctor at Ganga Ram hospital who had delivered her called us up the day
the article was published and asked, ‘Eh ki (Punjabi for ‘What is
this’)? I have delivered her, I know whose daughter she is’, she said.
But no one checked the truth before jumping to such conclusions.” he
says. In 2010, the CBI closed the case due to lack of conclusive evidence,
but the Talwars insisted they continue with their investigation and find
the murderer. A new Lucknow-based team led by AGL Kaul was assigned to
the case, but instead of pursuing the previous team’s theories they
reverted to the UP police’s version of the story and appeared hell-bent
on proving that it was the Talwars who were the killers.
Forensic experts changed their testimonials,
a pillow cover with Hemraj’s blood found in Krishna’s bedroom –
something that in any other circumstance would have been enough to
clinch the burden of guilt – was
written off as a typing error,
crude comments were made in court to explain the enlarged penis on Hemraj’s corpse and
new theories of a sexually active teenager were floated in the media. And while the investigation was going on its own skewed path to
nowhere, all attempts by the Talwars for better efforts to find the
murderer fell on deaf judicial ears. Their pleas to the CBI to have a
whisky bottle found at the scene with Aarushi’s blood on it sent to an
FBI-approved lab in the US for testing were
written off. Their appeal for 13 witnesses, including those listed by the CBI themselves, to be interrogated in court was
turned down. Aarushi’s and Hemraj’s missing cellphones led to a
dead-end, with the CBI showing no interest in further investigation. Even the biggest media houses insisted on taking only the CBI’s point of view without checking facts for themselves. A
January 2011 cover story published by
India Today suggested that the Talwars had manipulated the crime scene and were feigning ignorance:
“The
parents of Aarushi, Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, seem to have slept through
an incredible amount of activity in their small flat. They claimed
their bedroom door was shut and the air-conditioner turned on.” The
story had accompanying images of the child’s dead body – pictures that
were police property and should not have been published at all. An
advocate filed a
PIL against the sensationalist media coverage but the case did not lead to any conclusive outcome.
“All ‘media ethics’ went flying out of the window when it came to
Aarushi”, says Nupur. “In other cases (such as the December 2012
gang-rape), they were all very ethical about not using the victim’s name
or pictures. In our case, no such discretion was followed. On the
contrary, there was blatant character assassination on all fronts”, she
says, adding that what pains her the most is the way the police and
media stripped her daughter of all dignity. It only added to growing
animosity and public anger against the parents. So much so that Rajesh
was attacked with a meat cleaver by a crazed man outside court. But there was also support from unexpected quarters. A 14-page chapter in Patrick French’s book
India: A Portrait was dedicated to
Aarushi’s case, one of the first few to present the Talwars’ side of the story. The
Toronto Star carried
an article by Nupur’s cousin, supporting the family.
Tehelka ran a large
cover story
in June this year in which senior journalist Shoma Chaudhary went into
every file and sentence that was part of the case and declared the
Talwars’ situation to be “Kafkaesque”. Top lawyers represented the
Talwars in court
pro bono. Family chipped in with finances since
their dental practice was down to negligible, having to scurry between
courts across states. Old patients stoically stood by them. Neighbours
offered condolences and expressed shock. “It is only by the grace of these people that we are still here and
able to have this conversation”, says Nupur. “That, and our complete
faith in God.” The Talwars took to prayer and studying the
Bhagwad Gita,
looking for meaning in their excruciating experiences. “People say
there’s something to learn from all this – endurance, patience,
something. But I can’t see the learning or meaning in any of this”, says
Nupur. “We were a normal, happy family one day, and then overnight,
it’s become a living hell.” Rajesh credits his wife for being the rock in the relationship. “She
gives me strength, even when I become weak and falter.” Nupur, on her
part, says it’s all for Aarushi. “I just remind myself of her and that
is enough to give me the courage to push through all this, without
losing our sanity or breaking down.” What will they do if the court rules in their favour? “We’ll continue
to seek the truth”, asserts Rajesh. “Until we find the real killers,
there is no closure for us.” What if the court rules against them? They both shrug, their lips
tight in determination. Nupur responds after a pause, as if the answer
is obvious, “We will keep fighting. Even if the whole world is against
us, we have the truth on our side. That’s what keeps us going.”"
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/11/19/aarushi-talwar-case-parent-trap/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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