Aarushi murder: Court rejects father’s request for papers (Second Lead)

GHAZIABAD - A special court here Friday rejected the plea of Rajesh Talwar, the father of murdered teenager Aarushi, to be handed over the case documents of the 2008 murder after the CBI said that Talwar is a “suspected accused”. The case will be heard Jan 25.

The lawyer for Rajesh Talwar, Satish Tamta, requested the court to instruct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to provide him the entire 104-page documentation relating to the case. Tamta argued that since the agency had not charge-sheeted Talwar and had submitted a closure report in court, Talwar is entitled to get the entire documents so that he can file a protest petition.

R.K. Saini, lawyer for CBI, requested the court not to allow Rajesh Talwar, a dentist, to get the documents, including the statements of 150 witnesses. Saini said that there are still a number of critical and serious gaps in the circumstances of the crime which make it difficult to string together the sequence of events and motive behind the gruesome double murder.

He also said that Talwar “is not away from being the main suspect” in the murder of Aarushi Talwar.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had already arrested him and the court had sent him to judicial custody. But the CBI, in the absence of a clear cut motive and incomplete understanding of the sequence of events and non-recovery of the weapon of offence, had submitted a closure report.

Naresh Yadav, the lawyer for domestic helps Krishna, Raj Kumar and Vijay Mandal, who were earlier held accused in the case, demanded that the CBI should charge sheet the Talwar couple since the agency has sufficient evidences against them.

After hearing arguments from all three sides, CBI special magistrate Preeti Singh ordered that the court was yet to decide whether the closure report be accepted or not. In such circumstances the application of Rajesh Talwar was not accepted. The next hearing is scheduled Jan 25.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered under mysterious circumstances in her parents’ Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida, May 16, 2008. Their domestic help Hemraj was initially suspected for the killing, but his body was found on the flat’s terrace a day later.

Rajesh Talwar was arrested soon after the murders but let off when investigators could not find evidence to nail him.

Krishna, Talwar’s medical assistant; Raj Kumar, a domestic help with a family friend of the Talwars; and Vijay Mandal, another domestic help in the neighbourhood, were also arrested during investigations but were let off due to lack of evidence.