True Crime Collection

Aarushi Talwar & Hemraj Banjade - Part 1

Meanwhile, Bharati returned to the outermost gate: she pushed it, and it opened without the key. She found that the middle door was latched, but not locked. She opened the latch and walked in. When she entered the apartment, she saw Rajesh and Nupur crying. Nupur asked her to come inside Aarushi's room. Bharati stood at the entrance of the room, as Nupur walked inside. Aarushi's body lay on her bed; it was covered with a flannel blanket. Nupur pulled the blanket, and Bharati saw that Aarushi's throat was slit. Both the parents blamed Hemraj for Aarushi's murder in front of the maid. Bharati walked out of the apartment to inform the neighbours. She returned to the house and asked the Talwars if they wanted her to do the daily household chores. When they said "No", she moved on to work in other households.

The Talwars called their family and friends. Puneesh Rai Tandon, a neighbour who lived one floor below the Talwars, asked the Jalvayu Vihar security guard Virendra Singh to inform the police. By the time the police arrived, there were 15 people in the living room and 5/6 people in the Talwars' bedroom; only Aarushi's room was vacant. The crime scene had been "completely trampled upon". The story of a murder in an affluent neighbourhood also attracted many media persons, who gathered around the house by 8am. 

On 16th May, the missing servant Hemraj was the prime suspect. In his police complaint, Rajesh blamed Hemraj for his daughter's murder. He repeatedly told the police to pursue Hemraj instead of wasting time in the apartment, and offered them 25,000 to rush to Hemraj's native village in Nepal. The police suspected that Hemraj entered Aarushi's room in an inebriated state after consuming Scotch whisky, and tried to sexually assault her. When she resisted, he killed her with a kukri. The police announced a reward of 20,000 for tips leading to his capture. 

Aarushi's body was taken for post-mortem around 8:30am by 2 Uttar Pradesh police constables. Rajesh's brother Dinesh Talwar, his driver Umesh Sharma and his childhood friend Ajay Chadha accompanied the constables. Around 1pm, the body was brought home and placed on ice slabs in the living room. It was taken for cremation at the Antim Niwas crematorium around 4pm. According to the Talwars, who were later accused of being in a hurry to cremate the body, it was decomposing fast, and the family elders were pushing for cremation. In addition, the police confirmed that the body was not needed for any further examination. 

The police later alleged that the Talwars' domestic staff showed undue haste in cleaning Aarushi's room. In Talwars' defence, their compounder Vikas Sethi told the court that he had received the permission to clean the house from the police personnel and a lady constable present on the crime scene. 

A part of Aarushi's blood stained mattress was cut out and sent to the forensic lab along with her pillow, bed sheet and clothes. Vikas Sethi later testified that he, along with 3 others, tried to dump the remaining part of the mattress on the terrace, but found it locked. An old lady then told him to put the mattress on the neighbouring terrace. Rajesh's driver Umesh then asked the neighbour Puneesh Tandon for the key to his terrace. Earlier, at 4pm also, Umesh has asked Puneesh for the key, saying that he needed to dump the ice brought for Aarushi's body.  This time Puneesh opened the terrace himself. Umesh, Vikas and 2 others dragged the mattress to his terrace. Puneesh then locked the terrace door. None of them noticed the body of Hemraj, which was lying on the adjacent terrace, separated by a grilled wall. 

According to CBI, when the post-mortem report was being written between 3pm and 6pm on 16th May, a series of telephonic conversations happened between Dinesh Talwar, Dr Sushil Chaudhury and K K Gautam. K K Gautam, while deposing at the CBI court later in 2012, stated that Sushil had requested him to get any references to a sexual assault removed from the post mortem report, but he refused to oblige. He told the court that he had mentioned this incident to the first CBI team, but they left out this information from their records.