Aarushi murder: Key medical files vanish
The original records of the pathology tests conducted on Aarushi Talwar have gone missing from the Noida district government hospital, reports Kapil Datta.
The original records of the pathology tests conducted on Aarushi Talwar have gone missing from the Noida district government hospital.
The tests were carried out on her to determine whether or not her suspected killers sexually assaulted her.
Teenaged schoolgirl Aarushi Talwar was founded murdered at her Noida residence on May 16. A day later, her family's domestic help Hemraj's body was found on the terrace.
On Saturday, a team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers had visited the hospital at Sector 39 to vet the original records on the pathological tests carried out on Aarushi but allegedly returned empty-handed.
A senior hospital official — who requested anonymity — said the CBI investigators had wanted to match the copies of the records with the original files. "They wanted to match the reports since they suspected some overwriting in the copies," the official said.
On Saturday, the cupboards of the pathology department were broken as the pathologist was on unauthorised leave, the official said.
Confirming that the original records are missing, the hospital's chief medical superintendent S.C. Singhal told HT: "The CBI team was looking for original reports of blood sample, blood serum, white discharge and other tests. They may have found discrepancies or overwriting in the submitted reports and wanted to verify the original records."
Singhal said since January 21, the pathologist has been on unauthorised leave and had reported only for four days in March — 26 to 29. "Amazingly, the Arushi murder case test slides were inspected by the pathologist and reports submitted with her signatures," he said.
He said it was being probed as to what prompted her to conduct such sensitive tests while she was marked absent since March 30.
Noida city magistrate Sanjay Chauhan said: "I received a letter from a Noida official that the CBI team wanted some records from the pathology department of the district hospital in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case. Since the records were in the almirah, and the pathologist was not present, it was broken in my presence and of Dr.Lokesh Kumar, Dr.Sadhna Singh and Dr. P.K.Jha."
When asked, CBI spokesman Harsh Bhal said: "The probe is in a sensitive stage and we would not like to comment on this."