Aarushi (33 page)

How did he get his ideas?

‘It is not that I have to go to a quiet place by the river and sit down to think. If you study, ideas come.

‘Like in the Aarushi case. I saw the pictures of the deceased and their head injuries, and I thought these could be caused by a golf stick. And Talwar was a golfer. Similarly, for scalpel. Nature of cut and easy availability. Have you read my report? It is all detailed over there.’

‘I have, and I had a question about it. Your report is a theory that is based on the finding of Hemraj’s blood on a pillow cover in Aarushi’s room. The whole story follows from there. But that information is false.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, it was established during the trial that the pillow cover in question was seized from Hemraj’s room, not Aarushi’s.’

‘I am not aware.’

‘So who gave you that piece of false information?’

‘I was given all information by Mr Kaul, the IO. All the documents. What the post-mortem doctors were saying, we discussed.’

‘But that particular piece of information . . .’

‘Whatever was given to me, I went by that.’

‘Had you worked with Mr Kaul before?’

‘No, this was the first time. But we enjoyed good rapport.’

‘And he never told you at any later stage that the pillow cover was not found in Aarushi’s room?’

‘No, after I submitted my report, my job was done. I was only called by the court in the trial.’

‘So you did not know that in the closure report itself, this issue was clarified, and thereafter in submissions even to the Supreme Court. That it was clear there was no physical evidence of Hemraj’s blood in Aarushi’s room.’

‘I am not aware.’

‘Would your theory have been different if you knew this?’

‘No, no. It was a very clear-cut case of honour killing. I have said in my report. Also there is physical evidence. From the photographs it is clear that there are two impact splatters, two people were killed in Aarushi’s room.’

‘You could tell this from photographs?’

‘Yes. Very clearly.’

‘How come there was no scientific evidence of Hemraj’s blood then? Or anything else.’

‘May have been cleaning. I have said that in my opinion this was the case.’

‘There was no hard evidence then.’

‘I was asked to give my opinion. Now court also has accepted my opinion.’

Two cases don’t establish a pattern, but this is exactly what happened with Dahiya’s other famous theory—on how the fire was started on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra. Dahiya had arrived on that crime scene two months after the event. In his reconstruction he proposed that the mob had boarded the S6 coach having failed to set fire to the train from the outside. They did this by cutting through the vestibules that connected coaches, breaking the door to the coach and then unloading cans of petrol in the compartment.

The trial Judge P.R. Patel agreed with Dahiya’s reconstruction in his judgement, just as Judge Shyam Lal did in the Aarushi case. And like Judge Shyam Lal, Patel left several inconsistencies unexplained. The most significant of these was that none of the survivors from S6 told the court anything about such a raid at all. No one said they saw anyone cutting through canvas, breaking down the sliding doors, splashing petrol, or any such thing. The witnesses saw none of this, but two months after the event Dahiya did.

Judge Patel offered an explanation as to why none of the survivors saw the events that Dahiya’s report was so authoritative about: ‘Admittedly, at the time of the incident [around 8 a.m.] all the doors and windows of the entire train were closed because of the tense atmosphere and the passengers were not in a position to see or identify the assailants, and that too, unknown assailants.’

Judge Patel, relying heavily on Dahiya’s report, concluded that the ghastly crime was the work of a Muslim mob which was instigated by the announcements from a nearby mosque airing its encouragement live through its loudspeakers.

In Gujarat, the Godhra judgement established Dahiya’s reputation as a forensic scientist of rare ability. He acquired the reputation of a man who was able to see things no one else could see or had seen.

‘How did you work out that this was an honour killing?’

‘The situation of the bodies. Murders take place in one location, one body is shifted elsewhere. Cleaning is done. All these factors.’

Dr Dahiya was getting a little restless by now, and I knew I did not have much more time with him. I said, ‘In your testimony you said that Aarushi and Hemraj were engaged in intercourse.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you know this? Were you there?’

‘It was my opinion.’

‘You stated it as a fact in your testimony.’

‘I was asked for my opinion. I gave my opinion. The court accepted it as a fact.’

‘When you were saying Aarushi was engaged in intercourse, Dr Dahiya, did you once consider that this was a fourteen-year-old girl you were talking about?’

‘I have to go now. People are waiting for me.’

Dr Dahiya disappeared into an office in the corridor in front of us.

I spoke to him over the phone a month later. By then, his extension had been formally confirmed.

Dr S.L. Vaya

Dr Surabhi Vaya continues to live in Gandhinagar, but she is no longer associated with the Forensic Science Lab. ‘After a point it became untenable. I could not stand by and just watch. I have always been outspoken about what is right and what is wrong. But nothing was done to correct the wrongs.’

At the FSL, it is ungrudgingly acknowledged that Dr Vaya built the behavioural science department from almost nothing into one of the best in the country. She started with herself, a toolkit and an assistant. Over two decades, the Gandhinagar lab grew to become one of the best in the country.

What went wrong? In a sentence: She found herself engaged in a power struggle with M.S. Dahiya. Dahiya got his extensions; Dr Vaya left.

The problem, according her, was the kind of attention, acclaim and even money her department was bringing to the institution. ‘Egos were hurt. People like Dahiya made it a point to try and belittle behavioural science in general, because it was gaining rapid recognition, and threatened the importance of their stream of work. Their default position was to oppose anything that came out of the department. The Aarushi case is just one example.’

There were underlying cultural differences as well. Dahiya and Vaya came from completely different backgrounds. She had had a middle-class upbringing in Mysore, and had made her way up in her field casting herself as an independent-minded woman. She never says so herself, but it is hard to believe that her gender would not have been a factor in shaping her peers’ attitude towards her.

‘When Dahiya was submitting his report, we had a meeting, where I said it did not make sense that two diametrically opposite reports are sent from the same institution. His attitude was “you have sent your report, I’ll send mine”, and let us see whose is accepted.

‘Of course it would be easier for the CBI to accept his report at the time. It was unscientific, but it was the position they had taken. I did not want our lab to simply put out reports to please agencies or governments, just to be in their good books. This was happening regularly where Dahiya was concerned. I spoke out against it. We are scientists, not stooges.’

Several years ago, Dr Vaya met the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi at a function. He asked about the work being done at the Directorate of Forensic Science and appeared keen on the idea of a dedicated forensic science university. Modi asked her how much it might cost, and Vaya replied that she could get one up and running at a fraction of what was being spent on the chief minister’s security.

On a plot of land allotted by the Modi government, the Forensic Science University has indeed come up. It is where M.S. Dahiya holds the position of director, Institute of Forensics.

Dr Vaya has moved on as well. She is now director, research and development, at the fledgling Raksha Shakti University. It too is a government institution, founded during Narendra Modi’s tenure as chief minister of Gujarat. Its focus is internal security and disciplines related to it. To get to Raksha Shakti University, you have to ask for ‘Mental Chowk’—a well-known mental health institute is close by.

Dr Vaya’s work continues. She would like to restore the importance of her discipline as a tool in investigation. It suffered a major setback with a 2010 Supreme Court ruling which disallowed the use of scientific tests to incriminate suspects. The court ruled that tests without consent violated an individual’s right to privacy, and his right to not give evidence against himself. The court said the test results by themselves were inadmissible because the subject did not have ‘conscious control’ over his responses when they are undertaken.

This is true of narco analysis, where the truth serum induces a trance. But the same cannot be said about non-invasive procedures such as polygraph or brain-mapping tests. However, the clubbing of all the procedures under one ruling made it appear that way.

In practice, the Supreme Court ruling has allowed investigators the opportunity for selective use. In the Nithari killings, for instance, Surinder Koli’s narco narration was accepted in full by both the CBI and the trial court. In the 2014 murder of two girls in UP’s Badaun district, the investigating officer A.G.L. Kaul relied on polygraph tests to not charge some of the suspects. In the Aarushi–Hemraj case, the tests were all dismissed as unreliable.

‘The problem is not the tests. It is their misuse,’ said Dr Vaya. ‘Even if you don’t want to depend on them to establish guilt, when there is consent, why can’t they be used to establish innocence?’

In the Aarushi–Hemraj case, neither the CBI nor the court had any intention of allowing this. Dr Dahiya testified as a star witness for the CBI. Dr Vaya was prevented from appearing for the Talwars. She remains convinced about their innocence to this day.

No one, not Gurdarshan Singh or Arun Kumar or Kaul or Dahiya or Dr Vaya or the judge who wrote so authoritatively about the crime, was at the crime scene. I wasn’t either. The only people who were there were the assailants and their victims.

But as the story panned out, the Talwars’ undisputed presence in the flat that night burdened them with having to not just plead their innocence, but also answer the question ‘If you didn’t do it, who did?’

They did not know. In fact, investigators knew much more than them—the CBI had enough material to, at the very least, form a plausible alternative hypothesis. This is the material they hid from the Talwars, and prevented from being brought on the record in court.

This material was gathered by investigators in the months of June and July 2008. They are the reports of the scientific tests on the three servants. A few fragments were leaked in 2008, but once A.G.L. Kaul took over, they were just buried.

Sometimes, the methods of concealment were crude—even in situations where the CBI was obliged to furnish the material. In the counter-affidavit the CBI filed in the Supreme Court in 2012, for instance, Krishna’s polygraph examination at CFSL Delhi was submitted as an annexure by the CBI. However, what was annexed to an affidavit filed by Kaul were copies of just the first two pages. These contained details of memos and procedures. The actual results were in the pages that followed—and those weren’t attached.

Annexed to the same affidavit are the reports of each and every scientific test done on the Talwars. The scientists’ conclusions in these reports clear the Talwars, but those parts that Dahiya and Kaul chose to draw their own theory from are highlighted by helpful markings.

The story contained in the scientific reports of the servants has never been told. The documents were buried. Until now.

Excerpted from Krishna’s narco analysis narration on 12 June 2008 at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bangalore:

During the trance Mr Krishna said that basically he is from Nepal and had come to Noida 10-12 years back. He was staying with his sister in sector 25, Noida. He said that he was working and has also written 12th exams . . . He was introduced to Dr Talwar by Vishnu who was working as compounder in Dr Talwar’s clinic. He said that Vishnu was working both at Dr Talwar’s home and hospital. Vishnu’s parents were sick so he left the job, Vishnu had bought Hemaraj [sic] to Dr Talwar’s house. Hemaraj was Vishnu’s relative . . . He said that he was going to Talwars’ house to collect the keys from Hemraj. He also had the spare keys but he handed over the keys to Hemraj before going home. He said that Hemraj was coming to the clinic sometimes and was doing reception work . . .

He said on the day of the incident he was little upset about his girlfriend Sujata. Sujata is his friend and is married now, she is a housewife and stays in Noida . . . Hemraj was killed on the terrace. He said that the terrace was not locked. He said that he had bought kokari [sic, khukri] from Sujata. He said that he had kokari with him, kokari was very long. Hemraj did not have any kokari. He said that both Hemraj and Arushi were killed with the same kokari and he has seen it himself. He said that he will show the kokari. The blood stains on kokari was wiped with tissue and then flushed with water . . .

He said after the murder those people have thrown the kokari outside to destroy it. He said that Rajkumar liked Arushi. Rajkumar was Nepali and was working in Dr Anita Durani’s house, was staying in sector 53 and was visiting sector 25 to meet Hemraj . . . Rajkumar was around 23 years old and if he is subjected for the test the truth will be revealed . . .

He says the reason for the murder may be sex . . . He says that Dr Talwar may not be involved in this murder as Arushi was his only daughter and Hemraj was innocent. He says that first Arushi was killed, Hemraj was killed for the reason that he had known about the murderer. Arushi was killed from behind with kokari and Hemraj was hit behind [sic] the back to the head. He says that Rajkumar and his friend Shambu [Vijay Mandal] are responsible for these murders. He does not know about the kokari used by Shambu and Rajkumar, says that tissue used for cleaning have been flushed in the bathroom in Arushi’s house and later destroyed. He said that he does not know where the keys of main door and terrace are kept . . .

He said that he is not involved in this murder and Rajkumar has done this murder. He has only witnessed it. He said that Hemraj did not have habit of drinking alcohol and Krishna was drinking whisky, beer. The incident occurred at night between 12-1 am. Hemraj had gone on terrace and is killed. He said that Dr Talwar had not given him money to do the murder. He says that Hemraj saw murdering Arushi so he ran and tried to escape from terrace route and he was caught hold and killed. He said that after the murder he went back through terrace. He says that there is a way from the terrace to his home.