Krishna has confessed: CBI

CBI’s submission before the court amounts to claiming that they have cracked the murder mystery, report Tushar Srivastava and Peeyush Khandelwal. Unanswered questions

Krishna, Dr Rajesh Talwar’s compounder, has “confessed” to his involvement in the murders of Aarushi and Hemraj, the CBI told a special court in Ghaziabad on Tuesday.

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However, they did not say exactly how Krishna was involved: whether he was the murderer, conspirator, or someone who helped destroy evidence of the crime. All that the CBI told the court was that Krishna’s statement had been recorded under Section 161 CrPC, wherein he had admitted that he was involved in the murders “along with several other persons”. The agency said nothing on who these “other persons” were.

Still, CBI’s submission before the court amounts to claiming that they have cracked the mystery, and that the heat is now squarely on Krishna, irrespective of whether he actually murdered the teen and the domestic help. A top investigating officer told Hindustan Times: “The law treats both killer and conspirator as equal.”

So, has the “confession” sealed Krishna’s fate? Lawyer Tarun Goomber said: “A confession before police is not admissible in court, but if it leads to the recovery of the murder weapon or any other disclosure, then it can be used against the accused.”

Meanwhile, the CBI denied that they had found any "metal strip" from a drain in Noida’s Sector 25, as reported by a major daily on Tuesday.

According to the case diary and disclosure memo produced by the CBI in court, Krishna told interrogators that Hemraj had asked him to bring a khukri to the Talwar home on the night of May 14, a day before the murders, and that he had gone over to hand the knife to Hemraj.

Krishna has also disclosed that he went to meet Hemraj around midnight on the night of the murders.

The CBI did not say if Krishna had told them whether Aarushi and Hemraj were alive when he went, but claimed that Krishna had said he could help in recovery of the murder weapon and the missing mobile phones of the girl and the domestic, if he was given a chance.

The agency also said that Krishna was not cooperating, and has been giving evasive answers during the interrogation.

They added that the khukri recovered from Krishna’s quarters on June 14, along with clothes and some other material, were being examined forensically.

Officials refused to say if the khukri was the weapon of murder.

The court extended Krishna’s CBI remand by six days, keeping in mind his statements under Section 161 CrPC. Krishna’s counsel, however, denied his client had made any confessional statement.