Weapon used for inflicting the blunt injury
In May 2008, the forensic scientists stated that Aarushi was first assaulted with "a heavy sharp-edged weapon". The first hit on the forehead resulted in her death within two minutes, as indicated by the blood clot size.[37]
In 2012, after Aarushi's parents were charged with the murder, the CBI claimed that according to the experts, the "dimensions of the striking distance" of one of Rajesh's golf clubs was identical to the dimensions of the injuries found on the bodies.[7] Dr. Sunil Dohre testified that the weapon used for the U/V-shaped injuries could possibly be a golf club. The defence argued that the CBI officers had drawn the words "golf club" from Dohre's mouth.[38] Talwars' lawyer stated that Aarushi had suffered a hairline fracture, and produced the forensic expert Dr. RK Sharma, who told the court that this fracture could not have been caused by a golf club.[39]
Weapon used for slitting the throats
The weapon used for slitting the throats of the victims was never found. The identical measurements of the lacerated wounds indicated that the same weapon was used on both the victims. In May 2008, the forensic scientists remarked that the wounds displayed a "clinical precision and careful thought", as they were inflicted at the right spot to cut the windpipe and dissect the vital left common carotid artery which supplies oxygenated blood to the brain.[37] Initially, when the Noida police first suspected the parents, they stated that the weapon used was a "surgical knife". By June 2008, the CBI's suspicion had shifted to the three Nepalese men, and the weapon was believed to be a kukri, a type of Nepalese knife. [40]
The second CBI team returned to the "surgical instrument" theory. In 2013, CBI told the court that according to the faculty at the Talwars' alma mater Maulana Azad Medical College, their dental students were taught surgery. The defence argued that a dentist's scalpel has a cutting surface of about a centimeter: the instrument is too delicate to cut through the carotid artery.[41] According to the defence witness Dr. RK Sharma, the wounds could have been caused by surgical scalpel No. 10 (not used by dentists) or a kukri.[42]
Aarushi's room[edit]
Aarushi's body lay on her bed, covered with a white flannel blanket. Her face was covered with her schoolbag.[43]
There was blood on the pillow, the bed, the walls, the floor and the front side of the bedroom door. However, there was no blood on the toys, the schoolbag and the pink pillow kept on the back of the bed. These items were within the range of the splashed blood area, which indicates that they were placed on the bed after the murder. Aarushi's body lay undisturbed on the bed, and the bed sheet was laid out smoothly.[7][44] According to the CBI, no bloodstains were found on the book The 3 Mistakes of My Life, which Aarushi was supposedly reading before her murder.[45]
Aarushi's body[edit]
The 2008 post-mortem report written by Dr. Sunil Dohre marked Aarushi's genital area as "nothing abnormal detected", thus ruling out a sexual assault, but also noted the presence of a "whitish discharge" at her vagina. The whitish discharge sample was sent for pathological examination at the local district hospital, which reported absence of semen. However, later, in 2009, when this vaginal swab sample was sent to CBI's forensic labs, it was suspected to have been tampered with (see below). Ultimately, the CBI concluded that the sample had got contaminated, but not deliberately tampered with.[46]
The bed sheet had a wet circular mark below her pelvic area, which was not urine. There was no such wet patch on her pyjamas, which were untied; no urine or any other bodily fluid was found on her underwear either. The lower garments of Aarushi appeared to have been pulled up or pulled down, as her buttock cleavage was visible. CBI suspected that her pelvic area was swabbed clean, and the pyjamas were pulled up afterwards.[7][44]
Later in 2012, Dr. Dohre stated that Aarushi's private parts were "extraordinarily dilated", although there were no signs of rape.[10] He stated that her hymen was ruptured and that it had an old tear. He also stated that her vaginal orifice was "unduly large", the mouth of her cervix was visible and the whitish discharge was confined to the vagina, when it should have spread to the "entire area".[47] Dr. Dohre stated that he had not mentioned these observations in his original report, because these were his "subjective findings", and because "the findings were non-specific and were very strange".[33][48] He added the wide vaginal opening found on Aarushi's body could have resulted only when someone manipulated it while the rigor mortis was setting in. He thus concluded that Aarushi's private parts appeared to have been cleaned after she died.[38]
Hemraj's body and the terrace[edit]
Hemraj's body had been dragged at least 20 feet on the terrace after his death, as evident by a blood trail and abrasion-contusion on his elbows.[49][50]
The body was lying on the left of the roof entrance near the external unit of the air conditioner (AC), and was covered by a panel from the roof cooler. The body was dragged towards to AC unit, as the quantity of blood was more near the AC unit. An expert from FSL Gandhinagar as well as a team of experts from CFSL concluded that the drag mark on the roof resulted from a blood-soaked body being dragged after being kept in a bed sheet.[7] This raised suspicion that Hemraj might have been killed somewhere else, and his body dragged to the terrace in order to hide it. However, in June 2008, CBI's UV Light testing team reported that it didn't find Hemraj's bloodstains anywhere except the terrace. So, unless the killer cleaned up the original murder spot, Hemraj seemed to have been killed on the terrace. The blood found on the staircase leading to the terrace on 17 May might have come from the mattress that the cleaners were trying to dump on the terrace.[19]
A double-bed cover was draped upon the iron grill that separated the Talwars' terrace from the neighbouring terrace. The investigators found a smudged blood-stained palm print on the terrace wall. The blood was later identified as that of Hemraj, but the print could not be identified.[27] The police also photographed a blood-stained shoe print on the terrace; the shoeprint size was 8 or 9.[51]
According to the Talwars' lawyer Pinaki Mishra, those who had found Hemraj's body saw hair in his mouth, possibly that of his killer. However, the police did not check this.[52]
Unlike Aarushi's body, which had undigested food in the stomach, Hemraj had just 25 ml of liquid in his stomach, indicating that he did not have dinner.[53] This evidence was also supported by the fact that his dinner was found untouched in the kitchen on the morning of 16 May.[54]
In 2012, during proceedings against Aarushi's parents as suspects, Dr. Naresh Raj told a court that Hemraj's penis was swollen when his body was brought for autopsy. According to him, this meant that he was either in middle of a sexual intercourse, or was about to have one. The defence lawyer cited a medical book which stated that this swelling of penis after death was normal. In response, the doctor stated that his conclusion was not based on any medical authority, but on experiences from his own married life.[55]
Hemraj's room[edit]
On 1 July 2008, the first CBI team recorded a statement by KK Gautam, describing Hemraj's room as he found it on 17 May. According to this statement, Gautam saw three glasses, two of which had some quantity of liquor in them, while the third one was empty. He also found three bottles: Kingfisher beer, a Sprite and Sula whisky.[56] Later, DNA of Hemraj was found on the Kingfisher bottle,[57] although according to CBI's investigators, he was a teetotaler.[58]
Gautam also visited the servant's toilet where he "found urine of more than one person".[59] According to the statement, he also saw a depression on Hemraj's mattress pointing to the presence of three people in his room. However, in 2012, Gautam told the court that there was no liquor in any of the glasses. He also stated that he had not suggested presence of three people in the room, based on the state of the mattress. When questioned about the discrepancies, he stated that the investigating officer should be asked why he did not record his statements correctly.[60] He stated that an officer from the first CBI team "distorted several things he said, added things he did not say, and produced a statement that suited the line of investigation at the time."[23]
The doors and the keys[edit]
There were no signs of forced entry into the apartment, and the middle grill door had been found latched from the outside in the morning. There were two known sets of keys to the house entrance. One set was with the Talwars, and another with Hemraj. Nupur threw down one bunch of keys to the maid on the morning of 16 May. According to the CBI, Nupur had taken these keys from Hemraj's room. According to Nupur, Hemraj's keys would usually be kept on the sideboard, but she couldn't find them on that morning; so, she threw down her own keys to the maid. The question whether this key was that of Nupur or Hemraj was initially relevant to the investigation, as there were reports that the middle grill door had been locked from outside with a key (If both the keys were inside and CBI was right, it could mean that the parents locked the door, then went inside their apartment through Hemraj's door which they locked from inside, in order to mislead the investigators). However, later, the maid Bharati's testimony in the court established that the door was merely latched from outside. Thus, if the killers were not the parents, they could have shut the innermost wooden door (which automatically locked when shut), and then latched the middle grill door from outside.[6]
When the maid Bharati visited the house on the morning of 16 May, she tried to push the outermost gate but could not open it. When she came back at the gate after collecting the bunch of keys (which Nupur had thrown down), she could open it by pushing it.[18] The CBI theorized that the gate was originally latched from inside: when Bharati went down to fetch the keys, Nupur came to the passage via Hemraj's room, and unlatched it.[61] In September 2012, the defence claimed that the maid Bharati Mandal was a tutored witness, as she told the court Jo samjhaya gaya wahi bayan de rahi hu ("I am saying whatever I was explained.") However, Bharati denied that she had given any incorrect statement under CBI's pressure.[62] The defence stated that this door was not closed, and presented Rajesh's driver Umesh as a witness, who stated that this outermost door could be opened by pushing it hard.[63]
The key to the terrace door was never found. According to the Talwars, this key was present in Hemraj's bunch of keys, which went missing after the murders.[64]
The door to Aarushi's room (and the main door of the house) would lock automatically when shut. Aarushi's door could either be opened from inside, or from outside with a key. Usually, her room would be locked at the night, and its keys would be at Nupur's bedside. There was no sign of forced entry in Aarushi's room. On the morning of 16 May, the key was found in its shoe-shaped key ring, on top of a framed wall sculpture near the house entrance, in the living room. Nupur later told police that she was not sure whether she closed Aarushi's door the last time she entered the room at 11:00 pm, and if she did, she might have let the keys hanging in the key slot. She claims to have stated this in several lie detector, brain mapping and narco-analysis tests that she cleared.[6][10] In 2013, the SP Mahesh Kumar Mishra told the court that, on 16 May 2008, Rajesh Talwar claimed that he had locked Aarushi's room from outside at 11:30 pm on the previous night. Rajesh also told him that he had forgotten to lock his own bedroom door from inside, and someone could have stolen the key to Aarushi's room from his room.[29]
Phone records[edit]
Both Aarushi and Hemraj had mobile phones, and both the phones disappeared after the murder.
Hemraj
Hemraj used a Tata Indicom mobile with the electronic serial number #20CFA3EC.[65] The SIM card was registered in name of Rajesh.[2] On 15 May, Hemraj had received two calls from the Talwars' clinic: the first call at 4:58 pm lasted for 10 minutes, and the second call at 5:37 pm lasted for 2 and a half minutes. Rajesh was working in his Hauz Khas clinic at the time, while Nupur was in another area of Noida (Fortis Hospital), as indicated by her mobile phone records. The Talwars' defence lawyer later claimed that Krishna Thadarai was working in the Noida clinic at that time.[57]
The last call made to Hemraj during his lifetime was at 8:27 pm, and it lasted for 6 minutes. The call had been made from a PCO in Sector 31; the PCO was located a kilometer away from the Talwars' apartment.[51][66] The investigators were unable to determine who made this call.
The phone records confirmed that Nupur called Hemraj's phone from the Talwars' landline at 6.01 a.m. on 16 May. The call was picked up, but disconnected after two seconds.[2] This was the last call received on the phone, which was somewhere in the coverage area of the Nithari village cell tower 1362/254. The cell tower had a radius of around 1 km, and covered the apartment complex in which the Talwars (and Krishna) lived.[67][68] The police therefore suspected that the killer was present inside the house or in its vicinity on the morning of 16 May.[2]
Hemraj's phone was never found, but according to the CBI, the number was briefly active in Punjab.[68]
Aarushi
| Day | Time | Last activity |
|---|---|---|
| 1 May | 11:22 pm | SMS received |
| 2 May | 12:50 am | SMS received |
| 3 May | 12:58 am | SMS received |
| 4 May | 12:30 am | SMS sent |
| 5 May | 11:49 pm | SMS received |
| 6 May | 12:12 am | Call received |
| 7 May | 12:39 am | SMS received |
| 8 May | 12:19 am | SMS received |
| 9 May | 12:39 am | SMS received |
| 10 May | 12:39 am | SMS received |
| 11 May | 11:29 pm | Call received |
| 12 May | 11:20 pm | Call received |
| 13 May | 12:25 am | SMS received |
| 14 May | 01:08 am | SMS received |
| 15 May | 9:10 pm | SMS received |
Aarushi used a gloss black Nokia N72.[65] She would usually chat with her friends on phone until past midnight. However, on the night of 15 May, her mobile phone was inactive after 9:10 pm. According to the investigators, some of her friends had tried to contact her, but found her mobile phone switched off.[7] The police suspected that either the battery of Aarushi's mobile phone had died or it had been confiscated by this time.[69]
Around midnight, Aarushi's friend Anmol tried calling Aarushi on her mobile and then on the family's landline, but there was no response. Anmol sent an SMS message to her mobile phone at around half-past-midnight. According to the phone records, this SMS was not received by Aarushi's phone.[10]
A few days after her death, Aarushi's phone was found on a dirt track by a housemaid named Kusum, near Noida's Sadarpur area. The phone was possessed by her brother Ram Bhool since May 2008, but he started using it only in February 2009, when he bought a new SIM card. He used it intermittently; on 12 September 2009, the police traced the phone to his residence in Bulandshahar, and recovered the phone from one Jitender whom he had just sold the phone to. Kusum and Ram Bhool were taken into custody for questioning, but the CBI determined that they had no role in the murders: they were not aware that the phone belonged to Aarushi, and had no mala fide intention in keeping it. The police did not find a data card, pictures or text messages on the recovered phone.[70]
Family's landline
The family's landline phone was kept in the bedroom of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar.[7] According to the investigators, Anmol called the landline phone around 11:30 pm, and the call lasted 34 seconds. However, Rajesh denied any knowledge about such a call.[69] Anmol also dialed the family's landline number around midnight, after having failed to reach Aarushi on her mobile: there was no response. The Talwars say that Aarushi would sometimes turn off the ringer on the landline at night, and she might have done it on that night too.[6]
The neighbour Puneesh Tandon later told the court that when he visited the Talwar residence on the morning of 16 May, he asked Nupur's father if he had called the police. Nupur's father told him that the landline was out-of-order.[20]
Rajesh
Rajesh's mobile phone records do not indicate anything out of the ordinary. The tower location indicates that he was at his residence.[7] He had exchanged 16 calls with his fellow practitioner Anita Durrani till 8 pm. At 9:50 pm, he called the Impressionzz traders in Mumbai, from whom he had ordered Aarushi's camera through Indiatimes shopping, probably to ask about a camera feature. At 10.04 pm, he received a call from the father of a patient, who had an appointment on the next day. At 10:06, he called Dr. Mridul Seth to consult on a surgery scheduled on the next day. At 10:15, he received a call from Vikas Sethi, an employee at his Hauz Khas clinic. At 10:38, he received a call from a UAE number. At 10:54 pm and 11:01 pm, he made calls to the American Academy of Implant Dentistry, Chicago. The next call from his mobile was at 6:19 am on the next day, after the discovery of Aarushi's body.[9]
Nupur
Nupur's mobile phone was switched off from 7:40 pm on 15 May to 1 pm on 18 May. The call records showed that it had not been switched off even once during 60 days preceding the murder.[2]
Claims of threat to Hemraj's life[edit]
According to the police, Hemraj had told some of his friends about a threat to his life.[71] Although Hemraj's son-in-law Jeevan denied any knowledge of such a threat,[72] a social worker Usha Thakur confirmed that five days before his murder, Hemraj had told her that he feared for "his life and that of some of his near and dear ones".[73][74] Later, she told the investigators that she could not do anything for him that day, since she had rush to Bangalore due to a family emergency.[75]
Nearly three years after the murder, in March 2011, Hemraj's wife Khumkala, a resident of Nepal, came to India. She moved a plea at the CBI court in Ghaziabad, alleging that she suspected the Talwars to be the murderers. She stated that Hemraj treated Aarushi like his own daughter, but had strained relations with Rajesh. She claimed when Hemraj visited Nepal in December 2007, he had described Rajesh as a short-tempered person who rebuked him for trivial things and even chased him to beat him up. She also claimed that Hemraj had called her from a PCO 15 days before his murder: He told her that Rajesh and Nupur suspected him of leaking their family secrets. When Rajesh's brother Dinesh visited their house, he also looked upon Hemraj with suspicion. The three threatened to kill him, if he dared leak the family's private information to the outsiders.[76] According to her, Hemraj was frustrated with the Talwars' behaviour and was searching for a new job.[77] Hemraj's wife also claimed that Hemraj had not sent any money back home since December 2007, and had told her that he had kept the money with the Talwars. But the Talwars did not send her Hemraj's dues after his murder.[78] When asked why she had not made these revelations earlier, she stated that she had faith in India's judiciary until that point; her lawyer stated that she came from a poor family and had little awareness.[76]
Other evidence[edit]
- Hemraj had apparently served himself dinner in a plate around 10:30 pm, but never ate it. His bed was still tidy in the morning, indicating that he didn't go to sleep on that night.[6]
- A Ballantine's Scotch whisky bottle with bloodstains was found on the dining table. The bloodstains were confirmed as that of Aarushi and Hemraj by a DNA expert.[79] The Scotch whisky bottle came from a mini-bar concealed behind a wooden panel, so it appears that the person who took it out knew the house well. The bottle was seized on the morning of 16 May, but no clear fingerprints could be recovered from it.[44]
- Constable Chunnilal Gautam took the first photographs of the crime scene and collected fingerprints on 16 May.[80] The police had gathered 26 fingerprints from the crime scene. According to a CBI official, 24 of these were gathered through wrong methods and could not be preserved. Only 2 fingerprints were suitable for evidential purposes, but these did not match with any of the suspects.[81] Chunni Lal did not take fingerprints of Aarushi.[82]
- Aarushi's camera had photographs numbered 13, 15, 20, 22 and 23: this indicates that at least 23 photographs had been taken using the camera, out of which 18 had been deleted. The CBI considered the possibility of the photographs having been deleted by someone other than Aarushi.[83] Nupur suggests a simpler explanation: Aarushi took several pictures, and deleted the ones she didn't like.[84]
- At around 3:43 am, nearly 3 hours after Aarushi's murder, the Internet router in Aarushi's room switched off. The CBI produced a technical expert from CERT-In who stated that the switching on/off of the router after a long gap can only happen due to either a power cut or manual intervention. There was no power cut on the night of the murders, a fact attested to by the electricity department.[85] The router was next switched on at 6.01 am. However, the router switched on and off a number of times with long gaps throughout 16 May, even when the police and the visitors were present in the apartment. The CBI concluded that such unexplained router activity made this piece of evidence unreliable.[86]
Previous servants as suspects[edit]
The discovery of Hemraj's body had greatly embarrassed the police, as their initial investigation focused on him as the murderer. The police also received criticism for other investigation lapses, such as not cordoning off the crime scene. The investigating officer Dataram Nauneria (Noida Sector-20 police Station Officer) was shifted on 17 May. The next day, Superintendent of Police (City) Mahesh Mishra was also transferred.[87]
On 19 May the police named the Talwars' former Nepali domestic help Vishnu Sharma (alias Vishnu Thapa) as the suspect. Vishnu had worked as a servant and a clinic helper for the Talwars for 10 years. He would go on long vacations; each time, he would replace himself with a distant relative. When he left for a vacation 8 months before the murder, he introduced Hemraj to the Talwars as his replacement. However, when he returned, he found himself out of job: the Talwars preferred to retain Hemraj as a permanent employee.[88] The police suspected that an angry Vishnu might have killed Hemraj for usurping his job; Aarushi might have been killed for being a witness. Vishnu was taken into custody, along with former servants of the Talwars. However, the police were unable to find any evidence that connected him to the murders.[89] It was confirmed that he was in Nepal on the day of the murders.[90]
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