Leave us alone: family to media

A few hours before cops said they were probing if Aarushi was a victim of honour killing, the girl's family members appealed that journalists should let them grieve in peace. Ravi Bajpai reports.

A few hours before cops said they were probing if teenage girl Aarushi was a victim of honour killing, the girl's family members appealed that journalists should let them grieve in peace.

HT Image

Hounded by scores of camera crews and harassed by media speculations that Arushi's parents could have a role in the killings, the girl's uncle, Dr. Dinesh Talwar, said people should stop casting aspersions. “It is not that if you are silent, therefore you are guilty. We kept quiet because police said so else it would hamper investigations,” he told a television channel.

The mood at the Talwar house was that of grief when this correspondent visited them Thursday afternoon. A family member let the correspondent in after checking his references and identity proof.

Sitting by Arushi's photographs placed on a small table in the drawing room that leads into the inner rooms, a few elderly women were praying for her soul. “The sad part is we cannot stop journalists from speculating. Our silence is being misunderstood,” said a relative. Noida Senior Superintendent of Police A. Satish Ganesh told journalists that honour killing could be one of the three theories possible behind the double murders, but said they had nothing to prove this.

“We have no substantial evidence or a motive behind this assumption,” he said. People across Delhi reacted sharply to such “baseless” speculations. B. Mathur, a Hindustan Times reader wrote into us— "Newspapers and channels who have pointed fingers at Talwars without any concrete evidence owe an apology to the family."