Suspects still on CBI radar

The trio may not have on them the focus of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the murder of Aarushi Talwar (13) and her family’s domestic help Hemraj Banjade (45), 21 months ago, but accused medical assistant Krishna Thadarai and domestic helps Rajkumar Sharma and Vijay Mandal are yet to get a clean chit from the agency.

The trio may not have on them the focus of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the murder of Aarushi Talwar (13) and her family’s domestic help Hemraj Banjade (45), 21 months ago, but accused medical assistant Krishna Thadarai and domestic helps Rajkumar Sharma and Vijay Mandal are yet to get a clean chit from the agency.

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Since February 8, the CBI has been carrying out narco-analysis tests on Aarushi’s parents, dentists Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, to get more leads to crack the case.

Yet, “Krishna, Rajkumar Sharma and Vijay Mandal remain suspects in the case as of now,” a CBI case officer, who requested anonymity, told HT.

When put through two narco tests, in the weeks following his arrest in June 2008, Thadarai had allegedly indicated he was present at the time Aarushi and Hemraj were killed on May 16, 2008, as reported first by HT on June 20, 2008.

Thadarai and Sharma, during narco tests, had allegedly maintained that Hemraj’s mobile phone was ‘destroyed’ by them, according to the CBI.

The CBI has insisted the duo had allegedly ‘confessed’ to the killings in the narco tests.

Lawyer Naresh Yadav, who represents Sharma, however told HT, “Rajkumar Sharma, Krishna Thadarai and Vijay Mandal have consistently reiterated that they had no connection with the murder of Aarushi and Hemraj, at all.”

It was Thadarai, said the officer, who had told the Noida police, which had probed the case before the CBI took it over, about the alleged intimacy between Aarushi and Hemraj.

“But Krishna’s version was not corroborated by anybody else, even Rajkumar and Mandal,” he said.

Krishna knew the layout of the Talwars’ flat, the location of the keys that have been missing from the crime scene since, and could have got entry inside, as he would often come over to meet Hemraj.

The night the murders took place, the trio had visited Banjade’s servant room, located at the Talwars’ second-floor flat, L 32, at Jal Vayu Vihar in sector-25, Noida.

The four men then had whiskey, of Ballantine brand, before the killings occurred around an hour after midnight.

Two fingerprints found by forensic experts on the whiskey bottle later did not match with those of the three accused. However, 24 other fingerprints gathered from the crime scene were rendered useless as the Noida police allegedly did not follow the correct procedure.