Tuesday 18 June 2013

Will the CBI give the Talwars a fair trial?

CBI might boast itself for being an agency with high conviction rate, the reality that all of us know is that even this organization is not free from the clutches of the politicians and bureaucrats and so no investigation can be considered as impartial or that cant be influenced. The big fish are never targeted and they achieve high conviction rate mostly by filing those cases where the target is the common man, who doesnt have the backing of their political bosses. 

Same is again proving true incase of Aarushi's Murder Case wherein her parents are being made the scapegoats because CBI failed to catch-hold of the real culprits. All of us know that almost every teen in Metros is involved in love affairs and almost all of them are also physically involved. How many parents kill their children even if they come to know of this reality? So when CBI couldnt even prove the case against the Talwars using this logic, it framed a story that they might have hit Hemraj with Golf stick and hit Aarushi by mistake (A story shown by News channels few months ago, as per what CBI stated in the court). For God's sake, this is not a bollywood masala movie.

The couple recently submitted a list of 13 witnesses they want summoned in defence but CBI's special prosecutor R.K. Saini stated that none of the 13 witnesses were relevant to the case and all of them would waste the court's time and hence the Talwars should not be allowed to call any of them.

Saini had 39 witnesses in this case - including a cop who could not smell, another cop who couldnot remember anything, a doctor who revised his post- mortem findings five times, another doctor who said that it was possible to sustain an erection even if death interrupts coitus, etc.

Does the CBI want the witness scoresheet to read - 
Prosecution - 39
Defence - 0 ???

Dr. S. L. Vaya of FSL Gandhinagar, who conducted Narco tests on Talwars and one of the servants, Rajkumar, should also be prevented from testifying, says the CBI. The 2008 Gandhinagar report clears the Talwars and advises the investigation of the servants, but the CBI says that such tests are inadmissible in evidence, so Dr. Vaya's testimony is irrelevant.

What the agency keeps quite about is the recovery of two crucial pieces of evidence in the case- a khukri and a pillow cover recovered from the servant Krishna's room (in a different flatin the same housing complex as of the Talwars) on which a forensic lab found traces of Hemraj's blood.

Witnesses like Mausuma Jha and Rajinder Koul, friends of the Talwars, who arrived at the crime seen on 16 May 2008 are dismissed summarily by the CBI with the suggestion that there is no evidence that they were there. 

CBI also says that Dr. Richa Sharma, who examined Aarushi's vaginal slides need not to be called either. She is prosecution's witness and erection doctor, Naresh Raj's spouse. The CBI had, late last year, told the Supreme Court that it desperately needed her testimony. They then told the trial court that they couldnt find her and now Saini writes that the prosecution has reliably learnt that she is out of the country. What is the point of calling her in and wasting everyone's time? 

An article in Toronto Star states - 
"Arushi Talwar Murder- Indian Prosecutors say defence shouldnt use forensics or witnesses"

"Indian prosecutors say a Delhi couple accused of killing their daughter and cook should not be allowed to call witnesses"

The CBI had originally drawn up a list of 141 witnesses. The testimony of 14 of those dropped is crucial for defence. Among them are - 
1. A doctor who examined Aarushi's vaginal swab and told police that there was no sign of semen.
2. A constable who stated in police records that she allowed cleaners to clean the crime scene hours after Aarushi's body was discovered.
3. A high-ranking officail, Arun Kumar, who, during his stint at the CBI, headed a team that conducted extensive investigations and exonerated Dr. Rajesh Talwar in July 2008. His team found no evidence that Hemraj had been killed in his house. Hemraj's blood was not in Aarushi's room or on the Talwars' clothes.

Kumar's team emerged with an alternative narrative and pointed the finger at the Talwar's dental clinic assistant Krishna and two other domestic workers from the neighbourhood.

Kumar was taken off the case and a second CBI team didnt investigate the three alternative suspects further. It accused the Talwars of the murder.

The Talwars are seeking reports of the tests on the dental clinic assistant and the other two men. 

They are also asking that evidence collected by the police be examined by an independent investigating agency like a DNA expert in England.

So who can the Talwars summon in defence? If we go as per the CBI, they shouldnt be allowed to summon anyone and the case should be fought one-sided and decided. What a fair trial! 

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