The Double Murder Chaos

2008 Noida double Murder Case 

The murder of 13-year-old girl Aarushi Talwar and 45-year-old Hemraj Banjade, a male worker in a city famous for its criminal records. Most of the criminals that thrive in India are from a state named Uttar Pradesh, and within this state is a city named NOIDA. The conditions are currently drastically changed, but it was known as India's Crime City in the past decade. People reported an uncountable number of rapes, murders, burglaries, and many other brutal criminal incidents were from this city in 2008, and this double murder case was among them. The murders received a hefty amount of media coverage due to their scandalous nature, and the suspects dealt with brutal criticism during the proceedings of the case.

The case is the most mysterious and shocking murder case in India's history. It includes unexplainable and tampered evidence that involved naive cops, a verdict based on statements, and a wholly ignored intelligent investigator who almost figured out the case.

The Murders

Aarushi’s mother discovered the dead body of the 13-year-old girl on 16th May 2008 in her room, the body was inside a blanket, and her throat was brutally slit. The previous night involved some strange activities in their house, but as per the girl’s parents, the girl was alright last night and was reading a novel when Nupur (her mother) went into her room to turn on the wi-fi router. Parents called the police for investigation, but they spoiled the evidence due to their amateur proceedings and started a presumptuous investigation. The police officials didn’t secure the crime scene for a long time, and almost all the crucial evidence from the crime was spoilt.

Apart from that, her parents told officials that Hemraj was missing from the last day, and they suspected him of being the killer. They couldn’t give any proper reason why they think that. Amateur police officials' hunches and intuitions drove the case forward, which was later reinforced when they found the Hemraj's dead body on the terrace. They didn’t even seal the crime scene and ignored the building's scanning. Many private images of the girl and her family flooded the internet within a few hours, including pictures from the crime scene. Leakage of various evidence and images indicated the authority's causality in maintaining the victim's confidentiality.

Controversies & Investigations

There was no evidence or suspects, and heavy media coverage was involved leading to every detail of the case getting leaked out in the sea of people. People gave out their different opinions, and the major reason this case got substantial public attention indicated people's impoverished and typical thinking.

Let me state some facts about Aarushi:

• The girl studied in a school considered a “school of spoilt and rich brats” by many people. India was also experiencing a lot of western culture's influence on teenagers, which was heavily criticized by society.

• She was the kid of two successful dentists in Noida and was living an upper-middle-class lifestyle, and in terms of society, she was a “modern” girl. In India, the word “modern” often involves the connotations of “spoiled kids.”

People tried to find a love angle in this critical case of brutal murders. Usually, the people’s opinions don’t affect an official police investigation, but this case was different. Police officials were also among these people, so they proceeded with biased intuition. Police have already assumed that she was a spoiled kid, which clouded them from seeing things clearly. They were in cognitive dissonance and ignored everything that could disprove their belief. In short, people and police were more focused on victim-blaming. After clearing out a few suspicions and changing perspective, the prime suspects of the officers was the girl’s parents because of many reasons, which include:

• Their parent's room was 7–8 feet from the Aarushi’s room, and still, they couldn't hear anything in the middle of the silenced night.

• There were no signs of forced entry inside the room, and when the body was discovered in the morning, her room was locked.

• Her relations were not good with her father, which was clear from emails she had sent to her father.

As I told you that this case was receiving heavy media coverage, so every detail was coming out one way or another, and newspapers published many defaming facts about the family, which included allegations like wife-swapping, extra-marital affairs, sexual relation of the girl with the male domestic worker and declaring the girl as “promiscuous.” All the Aarushi’s friends and Talwar’s relatives were outraged against these allegations and organized candlelight vigils against judicial authorities for defaming the family's name and pressing baseless allegations on them.

Parents cleared out their suspicions by providing various reasons like the perpetrator might be having the keys to her room, all the rooms were shut closed, and the air conditioner might have canceled out the sound from her room. They also said that Aarushi was having a throat infection, which might have ceased her from producing any sound. Police have to believe their statements, and why not? The complete investigation was proceeding based on “sayings.” The parent’s defense was pretty weak, but the police cleared them out of their suspicions due to “public” outrage.

Now, why would the police do that? As I told you, they had no hard evidence, the matter was going out of their hands, and people wanted answers. So, they were following their intuitions, and due to some assumptions, their judgment was all clouded, and they did not see things clearly.

Due to all these clueless and unfruitful proceedings, India's judiciary decided to hand over the case to the CBI (The Central Bureau of Investigation is the premier investigating Indian agency and involves top-tier officials). The CBI tried to look at the subject from multiple perspectives and suspected three other domestic workers for the murders. They tried to argue that three people tried to assault the girl sexually. After assaulting the girl, they killed her and killed the domestic worker because he witnessed the whole event. This was just a hunch, which was ultimately found wrong.

CBI summoned all three suspects, as the officers were facing a lot of criticism due to their inability to solve the case. Hence, they used questionable methods to get the suspects' confession. CBI believed that this theory was almost correct, but according to the forensic results, analysis of the vaginal swap revealed no signs of sexual assault. But this involved a conspiracy, the doctor who did the testing was accused of giving false results due to their relations with Talwar family. However, the CBI cleared all the suspicions, and the results were the same as declared earlier. Later, all three men were released due to a lack of hard evidence, and the new CBI team was appointed.

CBI removed all the assumptions from the start, formed a timeline of the events, and Aarushi’s father was their sole prime suspect due to various loopholes in their defense. CBI argued that the cuts on the victims’ necks were “surgical” and could have been only made by professionally trained experts. Her head's blunt injury appeared to have been caused by a golf club, which was believed that it belonged to Mr.Talwar (Aarushi’s father). He murdered both of them because he saw them in an “objectionable” position as per the CBI’s closure report. In precise, he couldn’t bear that his 13-year-old daughter was sexually involved with their 45-year-old household worker.

In 2013, both parents were declared guilty by the court and sentenced to life imprisonment for double murder. As the allegations and reasoning behind the murders were all baseless, and the prominent argument of finding Aarushi and Hemraj in a sexual position was questionable. Why would a 13-year-old girl have physical relations with a domestic worker? 

As a matter of fact, the girl was beautiful, and she could have impressed any of her friends to have a relationship with her, then why as a domestic worker? 

Why would the girl decide to have sex with him in her room on the day when her parents were home? Her parents were very busy people and didn't stay at home for a long time in a day.

The verdict was heavily criticized, and in 2018, the CBI challenged the acquittal in the Supreme Court and, the Supreme Court admitted the CBI's appeal. The case was declared a "Blind Case," and they were released. In the end, no one was found guilty, and as a matter of fact, the perpetrator is still out there.

Conclusion

2008 Noida Murder Case indicates the importance of preserving the crime scene and ignoring assumptions that people are imposing through media. The authorities assigned to solve the case must be rational, look at the case from a different perspective, and avoid pressing false charges without proper logic. A movie name Talvar was released in India that displayed the reality behind the case, and the movie presented the perspective of an investigator and parents together. It clearly depicts the sequence of events, mishandling of evidence, and assumptions. In one scene, the protagonist of the movie, who was the investigator, clearly states that an appropriate way of running an investigation is that —

• Pieces of evidence are preserved and analyzed.

• Analysis of the dead bodies, looking at the victim's background and related people and taking statements from the people.

• Forming a timeline of events and then arriving at a conclusion.

As the investigator states, the conclusion was already in the people's minds, they have already assumed the result, and now they were searching for evidence that supports their result. A clear example of cognitive dissonance.

This investigator was among the CBI team, which was later replaced. He followed the investigations from the start, knew every loophole, and proceeded correctly as depicted in the movie. He could have solved the case, but as the authority needed a fast decision and due to various other issues, they decided to appoint a new team for a fresh perspective, and this supports a famous saying- 

Every disaster movie begins with a scientist being ignored. 

-Neil deGrasse Tyson

In my opinion, this quote pretty much concludes the case. Ignorance of parents' perspective was also a factor that created problems and made this case the most mysterious murder of India. According to top newspapers in India like India Times, "Aarushi Murder Mystery" is India's most mysterious murder case.

FOOTNOTES - Republishing my medium article