Aarushi-Hemraj Murder: CBI Ignored Key Evidence, Says Nalini Singh

CBI got key evidence from journalist Nalini Singh in Aarushi-Hemraj murder, but was never called to court.

On 12 October, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the double-murder of Aarushi-Hemraj. The court overturned a trial court’s order convicting them. But one question remains – why did the CBI reject its earlier finding that there were more than four people inside the house on the fateful night that the murders took place?

On Tuesday, 17 October, journalist Nalini Singh wrote an article in The Indian Express explaining how she helped the first CBI team in confirming the presence of three “outsiders” in Hemraj’s room on the night of the murder.

In light of Singh’s piece, The Quint is reposting this blog from its archives. In this piece, first published on 5 August, 2015, Singh tells us how she was silenced.

• Senior Journalist Nalini Singh had in 2008 corroborated what domestic help Rajkumar said in the Narco tests

• TV channel Nepal 1 helped the CBI confirm the presence of the servants in Hemraj’s room on the night of the murders

• CBI Inspector after questioning Nalini Singh said this was clinching incriminating evidence against the servants

• Nalini Singh tells The Quint how she was silenced. ‘The CBI came to me, gathered evidence against the servants and I never heard from them again’, says Nalini Singh

• Court even rejected the Talwars plea to present Nalini Singh as a defence witness in 2013

In October 2013, the Ghaziabad Sessions Court had rejected the Rajesh and Nupur Talwar’s plea requesting that senior journalist Nalini Singh be produced as a defense witness in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case.

I did not know the Talwar family. They were not my dentists or friends. I don’t even know where Jal Vayu Vihar is.

Nalini Singh, Senior Journalist

Singh didn’t know the Talwars but the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) obtained a lead from her that had the potential to alter the narrative of the double murder. The CBI heard her story but has never taken cognizance of it.

I never went to the CBI, they came to me.

In July 2008, CBI inspector Anuj Arya walked into Nalini Singh’s Nepal 1 office at Delhi’s Barakhamba Road asking if a certain Nepali song played on the channel on the intervening night of 15-16 May 2008.

Anuj Arya, a tall CBI officer walked into my office flashing a badge. He entered my cabin, did not allow me to take calls or exit till I had answered all his questions. My team even provided him the video footage and the playlist he demanded. I was very curious, so after the questioning was over, I asked him what this was about. He said this was crucial evidence in the Aarushi murder investigation.

Nalini Singh, Senior Journalist

Nalini Singh and her team had confirmed to the CBI that a certain popular Nepali number was indeed playing on the intervening night of 15-16 May, 2008.

The CBI officer told me this evidence would help to establish the presence of the servants in the Talwar home that night, Singh told The Quint.

In the narco analysis tests that were conducted on the three domestic helps (Krishna, Vijay Mandal, Rajkumar) in question, Rajkumar had admitted they were drinking and watching Nepal 1 in Hemraj’s room that night. He even hummed a certain song during the narco test, the CBI was able to corroborate that with the crucial evidence Nalini Singh and her team had provided.

But investigations didn’t show signs of the evidence I gave them, it went in the opposite direction, painting the Talwars guilty. I met Ashwini Kumar (CBI Director) at a gathering and asked him, he shook me off saying his hunch was it was the parents. If not, then an outsider and the last probability was the servants. I even wrote a letter to CBI Director Ranjit Sinha in October 2013, but got no reply.

Nalini Singh, Senior Journalist

December 2010, the CBI filed a closure report that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the Talwars. The case went to trail in 2011.

Anuj Arya was prosecution witness number 36 but wasn’t allowed to depose. The CBI never got back to me. I had my answer. This has never been able to leave my mind.