Aarushi

by Avirook Sen

  ***

  The first court-authorized narco analysis test in India was done at the Sabarmati jail in Gujarat in 1989 by a young behavioural scientist named Dr S.L. Vaya. At the time police liberally, but completely illegally, injected sodium pentothal (or truth serum) into suspects. Dr Vaya felt that a valuable investigative tool such as this needed to be legitimized, and administered by professionals. ‘There was no lab to speak of at the time, so I used to carry equipment around in a box. The first procedure was done in jail that way,’ she said, ‘but I insisted on consent and a court sanction.’

  Soon, police forces from all over the country began using her team’s services at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Gandhinagar, and other labs like it. FSL Gandhinagar was highly regarded and charged a high fee for the procedure, Rs 50,000 per subject. This became a steady revenue stream for the institution.

  The lab is reasonably well equipped today. The narco room looks like a hospital operation theatre where the patient lies down and is brought to a trance state with carefully measured injections of the truth serum. The sodium pentothal injection has two effects on a human being: it produces a sense of serenity and well-being; it also makes them talk—and reveal information without fear. Scientists say this is the most humane way of eliciting information from suspects, filling gaps in an investigation.

  Alongside this, brain-mapping is done in a soundproof room where the subject sits behind a one-way glass window (the scientists outside can look in), with electrodes attached to various parts of the body. The procedure is non-invasive: an earpiece gives audio cues, while a screen provides the text and is used to show the subject photographs. The machine looks for waves of different frequencies, each band indicating how the brain has processed the cue. There are pre- and post-test interviews, relevant parts of which find their way into the final report.

  Dr Vaya was a respected veteran in her field by 2008. The CBI had turned to her lab in the other notorious crime from Noida, the Nithari killings. In December 2006, skeletal remains of women and children were found in a drain behind Moninder Singh Pandher’s house in the Nithari village of Noida. Pandher and his servant Surinder Koli were accused of raping, killing, dismembering and disposing of 17 children, including ten girls. That case had opened up when Koli revealed in his narco test details such as how he would find out the names of his victims from the loudspeaker announcements during evening prayers asking for information on missing children. Koli was convicted but his death sentence was later commuted.

  The polygraph or lie detector test consists of a customary pre-test interview, after which subjects are familiarized with the equipment and given sitting instructions. A number of tubes and wires are then attached to them. These record physiological responses to questions read that must be categorically answered in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ terms. The questions come every 25 seconds.

  The questions are straightforward. As the subject answers questions, every physiological change in the subject, whether it is in respiration, pulse rate, blood pressure or even skin reflex—through electrodes attached to fingers—is recorded. A comparison with his normal physiological performance guides the examiner to an opinion on whether or not the subject is telling the truth.

  The Supreme Court has judged that the forcible use of such scientific tests is a violation of fundamental rights. Even when the tests were conducted with consent, the court has said that the subject is not in control of his responses so the results are inadmissible. ‘However, any information or material that is subsequently discovered with the help of voluntary administered test results can be admitted, in accordance with Section 27 of the Evidence Act.’ This meant that if a suspect revealed something during the test like, say, where he had kept Hemraj’s phone after the murder, the test and his narration would not be admissible as evidence; but the police could, based on what he had said, recover the phone and then present it as evidence which would be admissible in a court of law.

  Bibha Rani Ray, then director of the CFSL, conducted the polygraph test on Krishna. She and other behavioural scientists concluded that he was being deceptive and manipulative. He was intelligent and very keen on shifting blame. He was also ‘loyal to no one’.

  Within days the results of Krishna’s lie detector tests were confirmed by narco analysis at Bangalore during which he spilled details of the crime and the weapon used. Among other things, Krishna said that he and two other servants in the area, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, were present in the Talwars’ flat with Hemraj at midnight; he witnessed Rajkumar committing the crime; and Rajesh Talwar had nothing to do with the murders. According to the scientists conducting the test, Krishna’s answers were out of sequence and filled with attempts at deception. This is why the CBI also admitted that there was some evidence of the servants’ involvement when they filed the closure report; however, this was too little to go by.

  Days later, on 18 June, the CBI sought, and got, an extension of Krishna’s custody. The CBI presented before the magistrate the case diary in which it recorded that Krishna had confessed to the crimes, that a khukri had been used and that he could recover Aarushi’s mobile phone. Remand was granted, and the CBI raided the servants’ quarters of L-14 Jalvayu Vihar. Vijay Kumar and Anuj Arya of the CBI were both a part of this raid. The recoveries included a khukri with specks of blood on it and a bloodstained purple pillow cover.

  In the following three weeks, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal were also taken into custody. Rajkumar was employed by the Durranis. He was a little younger than Krishna and everyone who knew him, including his employers, remarked about his good looks and easy manner. He got along well with the Durranis and the Talwars. The cellphone handset he used had originally belonged to Aarushi, who had passed it on to her friend Vidushi, who in turn had handed it down to Rajkumar.

  The Durranis found it hard to believe he was involved in the crime when he was arrested. But when the results of his scientific tests came in, R.K. Saini, the CBI counsel, showed the results to them saying, ‘Dekhiye kaise nevley paale the aap logon ne’ (Look at the sort of mongoose you’ve had as a pet).

  Vijay Mandal worked for Puneesh Tandon and lived in the garage below. He was also in his early twenties and had had a troubled childhood; his lasting memories were the severe beatings he got at the hands of his parents. He left home to find employment, but his anger problems meant he couldn’t hold down jobs.

  Rajkumar’s scientific tests were similar in their fundamentals to Krishna’s, but had many differences. He said they watched TV and listened to Nepali songs; Krishna got drunk on the terrace; and there was a fight between Hemraj and Krishna in which Hemraj admonished him, ‘Awaaz se sab jag jayenge’ (The noise will wake up everyone). Then Aarushi was murdered.

  At the lab, Dr Vaya’s report records, Rajkumar was fidgety and uncooperative. He was confronted with the story that Krishna had put out about him ten days earlier at the Bangalore laboratory. In constant fear of being implicated, he asked the scientists at one point: ‘Main isme phas to nahin jaoonga?’ (I won’t get trapped in this?)

  In Dr Vaya’s assessment, Rajkumar was capable of withstanding long hours of interrogation and determined to protect himself. So despite his narrative, culled from interviews and tests in the lab, Dr Vaya felt Rajkumar was unlikely to confess.

  Vijay Mandal’s scientific tests in Mumbai also revealed that all three of them were present with Hemraj in the Talwars’ flat at midnight and that there was a struggle with Aarushi; he also spoke of his fear when he realized Aarushi was dead.

  The most important point of convergence was their independent admissions that they were with Hemraj late that night.

  The problem was that Krishna said Rajkumar committed the murders, and Rajkumar said Krishna committed the murders. Outside of the tests, when questioned by the police, all three claimed alibis: each said he was asleep, at home, and not at the Talwars’ flat. Vijay Mandal in fact had his employer give the alibi that he was in bed by 9.30 p.m.

  In a conversati
on with me after the trial, Bibha Rani Ray remembered that it had become fairly clear to her that the servants had some sort of ‘infatuation or lust for the girl’. She said she could not tell for certain that all three servants were present at the crime scene, but that ‘Someone was there, not necessarily all three, but someone was there. They all had easy access to the house.’

  ***

  It emerged that Rajesh had scolded Krishna publicly for a poorly made dental cast a few days earlier. The assistant felt humiliated and was simmering with rage and had told Hemraj that he would sort his employer out. But as a motive for murder, this was disproportionately weak.

  Vaya told Arun Kumar that there was enough material in tests done on Krishna and Rajkumar for the CBI to investigate and frame charges even without a confession. They would just have to work hard on the investigation.

  There was a press outcry over Krishna being forced to take his narco tests. The media asked if the ‘confessions’ the CBI claimed to have from the servants would pass muster in court. (They wouldn’t: the only kind of confession that is legitimate is one where a magistrate records a suspect’s story under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, CrPC. This wasn’t anywhere close to happening.) Krishna’s family had also approached the National Human Rights Commission, saying he was forced to undergo invasive narco analysis and a confession was beaten out of him.

  Arun Kumar’s team made some attempts to find incriminating evidence such as the cellphones of the victims, but these were unsuccessful. Kumar turned his attention to the weakest link: the tests on Vijay Mandal pointed to his being part of the crime scene, but as a witness rather than as a perpetrator. Kumar felt he could extract a statement under Section 164 from Mandal which would form the basis of the charge sheet against Krishna and Rajkumar. Mandal would get off lighter if he agreed. Kumar felt this was his best chance.

  Most Indian investigators work towards getting a confession rather than investigating the case. It is the easiest way to get a conviction in court—and the laziest.

  ***

  Given the nature of the media involvement, Vijay Shanker would get a number of direct inquiries about the case, even though it was being investigated by a subordinate. He told Arun Kumar to hold a press conference to clear things up.

  ‘I remember that there would be twenty cameras outside the CBI office,’ Vijay Shanker told me later. ‘And you know these poor television reporters, they would have to stand out in the heat all day. So I told Arun, these people come every day, why don’t you tell them about the progress, how you’re going about it. Whatever you can say. What you can’t say, you can’t say.’

  On 11 July 2008, with the servants and Rajesh Talwar still in custody, Arun Kumar held a press conference. The media sought a lot of answers, and Kumar wasn’t able to provide all of them—he could not, he said, say who committed the crimes. But on the basis of the investigations till then, the CBI had found no incriminating evidence against Rajesh Talwar. Two polygraph tests were done on him and while the results of the first were ‘inconclusive’ (a technical term that means the interpreting scientist cannot draw conclusions, not a sign of guilt) the second test made it clear that the dentist was not being deceptive on any count. The CBI sought Rajesh Talwar’s release.

  Arun Kumar also said that the scientific tests on the servants had opened up a new line of investigation: Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal were suspects. With no reason for the agency to keep Rajesh Talwar in custody, the CBI applied for his release. Fifty days after he was arrested Rajesh Talwar walked out of prison.

  ***

  Rajesh Talwar would later speak about those days to me and other journalists. Of the nights he spent on the floor, covering his face with a stinking sheet to keep the mosquitoes away. Of the rudimentary dental chair the jail authorities allowed him to eventually set up, where the few hours of work with patients helped him keep his tenuous hold on sanity.

  But of all his experiences from that time, one incident haunts him most. While he was in custody he would be taken to court for his plea for bail. All undertrials who were to make their appearance in court that day would be handcuffed and bundled into the same vehicle. This was uncomfortable enough, but on this particular day, the police handcuffed Rajesh and Krishna together. Rajesh said he wept and pleaded with the policemen: ‘Don’t do this, this man has killed my daughter!’ Krishna didn’t respond at all. All the police said was, ‘We have only one pair of handcuffs.’

  ***

  On the evening of 15 May, the Talwars’ driver Umesh had come up to the flat to deposit the car keys at 9.30 p.m. This made him the last person to have seen all four people in the house alive. The Talwars were preparing for dinner when he left. That evening Aarushi’s parents had a surprise for her. She would turn fourteen in a few days, and the digital camera Rajesh had bought online had arrived. Rajesh had ordered an extra special camera—while Aarushi’s friends all had 5 megapixel cameras, this one was 10 megapixels. The excited father wanted to hide the camera from Aarushi, and told Nupur about it. She said she wouldn’t be able to keep this little secret and the two decided to give her the camera that night.

  Just as her parents had hoped, Aarushi was thrilled. She spent the rest of the evening with Rajesh and Nupur, taking pictures of her parents and herself, keeping the ones she liked, deleting the ones she didn’t. She complained that her cellphone was giving her trouble, and there was some talk of getting her a new handset. What we know is that her phone was turned off.

  There could be a reason for this. There were two boys, Anmol Agarwal and Sankalp Arora, who had a crush on her and would speak with her regularly. Anmol was in her grade; Sankalp was a bit older. She had earlier had a crush on Sankalp but was now becoming a little interested in Anmol though she worried about his love for partying. In any case, these were matters that were confusing to her more than anyone else and she probably didn’t want to deal with all of that this evening. She was more excited about her camera.

  Sankalp tried to contact her several times that evening, but Aarushi’s phone was switched off, and no one was picking up the landline. At school that morning, there had been talk of a bunch of them going out for a movie and lunch to one of the malls, plans that did not materialize. Aarushi wasn’t very keen—possibly because Sankalp would be there too—and told her friends, ‘I may not be there physically, but I’ll be there mentally.’ She was, however, looking forward to the bash Rajesh had organized for her on the 18th, a grand 1000-rupee-a-plate affair at the Superstar restaurant, to which many of her friends, including Anmol, had already been invited.

  The Talwars ate their dinner happily that evening, and at around eleven went to their bedrooms. Hemraj had served himself his dinner too, but he never ate it, as his post-mortem later showed. Rajesh had a few things to do before retiring. He needed to confirm whether the American Dentistry Association had received a payment he had made for a fellowship, but the Internet connection was slow. He asked Nupur to go to Aarushi’s room and switch the router off and on. Nupur remembers entering Aarushi’s room, and seeing her daughter reading. What she cannot remember is whether she locked the door from the outside as she usually did. Neither was she sure where she kept the keys to Aarushi’s door that night (they would usually be kept in the parents’ bedroom). After the murder, the keys were found in the drawing room.

  Shortly thereafter, Nupur fell asleep. Rajesh was on the phone till a little after 11.30 p.m.; Nupur’s brother had called. When Rajesh was done, he too fell asleep.

  Half an hour later Anmol Agarwal, having failed to reach Aarushi on her cellphone, tried one of the Talwars’ landlines—one that he usually spoke to Aarushi on. The handset and its base were kept in the parents’ bedroom, with its ringer volume turned down at night. Anmol’s call, a little after midnight, went unanswered.

  ***

  Nupur Chitnis and Rajesh Talwar had met as students in Delhi’s Maulana Azad Medical College in the mid-1980s. They fell in love and were married in an unusual
ceremony in 1989. Rajesh was of Punjabi stock, Nupur was Maharashtrian, so two pandits came and struck a compromise. They got married at midday instead of the customary morning or evening. Aarushi arrived on 24 May 1994, after five years of trying to conceive, and, to Rajesh, her gender was irrelevant. He doted on her.

  Rajesh’s dad was a prominent Delhi doctor, and Rajesh remembers his childhood as being happy. He had a few problems adjusting to school early on, but then settled down to become a very good student. His elder brother Dinesh was a constant protective presence.

  Bhalachandra Chitnis, Nupur Talwar’s dad, was an air force officer. His postings took him to various places. Nupur grew up as a reserved and collected little girl—qualities that would remain. Chitnis did a stint in London, when Nupur was about six, and remembers a spell when his wife Lata was away in India, and it was just him and Nupur. ‘Even at that age, she was extremely considerate. She would never ask for anything. And I don’t remember seeing her cry unless she was physically hurt.’

  Because of her father’s transfers, Nupur went to various schools. ‘She was always very straight-talking, and insisted on correctness. If the teacher said “matchbox”, for instance, she would say it was “a box of matches”. When they said “have a glass of water”, she would reply “I’ll have a drink of water”,’ remembers her father. One could call this childish or pedantic, or both, but it showed a certain assertiveness—a trait for which she was both admired and respected within the family. The other little girls all wanted to be like Nupur. When Aarushi’s body was discovered and Rajesh was lost and helpless, banging his head against the wall, it was Nupur who informed their friends.