by Avirook Sen
Rajesh told me: ‘When he beat him up, I called up Neelabh Kishore. He started saying very sorry sir, really sorry.’ Nupur imagined that Kaul and Kishore were playing the old good cop–bad cop with them. ‘He was always like that. “We have to change this IO,” he says. And you know what he asked me? “It was in the CBI this happened? Are you sure? Lodhi Road?” I said yes very much Lodhi Road CBI office. “Ohh,” he says, “we have to change this IO.”’
Rajesh Talwar sought an appointment with the CBI director to complain, but could reach only the special director. He says he was assured that such a thing wouldn’t happen again, but rues the fact that he didn’t file a formal police complaint.
Kaul needed stronger evidence regarding the clubs. He didn’t get it, but he could rely on Dahiya to introduce it as the ‘new’ murder weapon. After suggesting that a golf club could have been the weapon of assault, Dahiya expanded on his theme:
There is also some possibility of a hockey stick to have been used, if there are some strong reasons to rule out the use of a golf club. A golf club is heavy enough to fracture the skull; it has a long handle that allows the assailant to maintain distance from the victim; it can be struck with great speed and force; it can leave a triangular cavity at the point of impact on the skull and it can cause an injury that matches with the dimensions of injuries recorded in the present case.
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Document 79, with its errors, speculation and astounding claims, would guide not just the investigation, but also the trial. Dahiya’s report introduced several new things, but one of the most important was the phrase ‘dressing up’ of the crime scene, a charge the Talwars would have to live with from October 2009 onward. This, despite the fact that the flat was filled with blood and fingerprints, and a bloodstained bottle of whisky sat on the dining table asking to be noticed.
If the Talwars were so careful, why leave such obvious clues? One explanation was that it is precisely why they would do it: they didn’t want to make the clean-up look too perfect. Or that they wanted to divert suspicion towards Hemraj, who it was initially believed had gone missing after killing Aarushi and helping himself to a drink. Dahiya also suggested that Hemraj was wrapped in a sheet after being fatally wounded in Aarushi’s room and carried to the terrace where he was dragged to a spot which concealed the body.
All these themes would play out during the trial, but before that Kaul had to try and establish that a golf club was the murder weapon. He sent the golf kit to the biology division of the CFSL shortly after it was seized. Those tests yielded nothing by way of blood or DNA. On 10 November 2009, the clubs were sent to the physics division, where they lay till they were finally unsealed on 15 April 2010. It is only then, six months after the golf club theory was floated, that their dimensions were actually measured. A report would follow three months later.
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September 2009 was the first time Nupur and Rajesh Talwar met Kaul and Neelabh Kishore. The officers of the new team wanted to take a look at the crime scene. The Talwars had moved out of their Noida flat by then, but were there to show the CBI men around. ‘We wanted to cooperate to the fullest extent,’ Rajesh told me later. But the couple had the niggling feeling that something was wrong even before any pleasantries were exchanged. Kishore was polite in his greetings, Rajesh recalled. ‘The minute you see somebody, you can make out—there’s something wrong there. At the stairs I shook hands with Neelabh Kishore. But Kaul intentionally did not shake my hand.’
Rajesh had been a suspect early in the investigation and spent nearly two months in jail before being released. Now, he suddenly felt like a suspect all over again. He would later tell Nupur that he had a bad feeling about Kaul. She told me, ‘I also felt it, in fact we talked about it. I said why is he giving us these dirty looks? He asked, what kind of bed sheet did Aarushi use? I said blue bed sheet with a Disney print on it . . . He gave me a look as if I was lying. I said ya, that is what she was using. I knew there was something wrong, immediately.’ That first meeting would define not just the relationship that Kaul and his team would have with the Talwars, but also the line of investigation. Kaul, like so many other people, may have got the impression that Nupur Talwar was cold and manipulative—and a little too assertive for his liking.
Kaul and his subordinates were interviewing other family members as well. One such interaction, with Nupur’s parents, Bhalachandra and Lata Chitnis, was going well till Kaul asked their opinion on Nupur and Rajesh’s relationship. Lata Chitnis told him that the marriage was very happy, the family tight-knit. Kaul waved this away in a manner that seemed inappropriate to the retired air force officer. He told the CBI man that it was his daughter he was talking about, and that he expected more decency. Kaul flared up, telling the old couple that he would drag them to the CBI office in Delhi day after day if they didn’t answer questions properly. A heated argument ensued, during which Chitnis reminded Kaul that he wasn’t impressed by the threat. He was a senior citizen: it was his right to be interviewed at home. Kaul backed down.
One of the last meetings the Talwars had with Kaul was at the Talwars’ Hauz Khas apartment, and it was similar to the first, but by now, late 2010, everyone’s tone had changed to open hostility. Especially between Kaul and Nupur Talwar.
Nupur clearly remembers that meeting. ‘He was sitting in the lobby . . . He said I’ll get twenty witnesses to say that she was covered with a white sheet,’ she said. Kaul was referring to the flannel blanket that Aarushi was found covered with, which one of the UP policemen had described as a white blanket. This semantic difference apparently made it seem to Kaul that they were talking about two different articles, when they were talking about the same thing; and to his mind, it could have meant something as sinister as destruction of evidence.
‘I said no, she was not covered with a white sheet,’ Nupur Talwar said. ‘I then said either your witnesses are lying or you are lying, because she was covered with that flannel sheet with circle patterns, which you keep seeing on TV shows everywhere. Then he started staring at me in a dirty kind of way. So then I told him you talk properly, behave properly. I told him I don’t want you talking this way to me. I said I’m not lying to you, I’ve never lied to you.’
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It seemed Nupur Talwar had annoyed Kaul because she wasn’t intimidated by him in person. So he came up with his own little psy-ops project. He created a special email address in order to communicate with Rajesh and Nupur Talwar: ‘[email protected]’, under the username ‘Hemraj Singh’. All emails to and from ‘[email protected]’ were official. Rajesh Talwar would receive email summons from this address. When he was asked for his consent to undergo narco analysis, for instance, ‘Hemraj Singh’ wrote him a mail on the CBI’s behalf.
As official conduct, the creation of this creepy alias was indefensible. As a pressure tactic against suspects who were expected to respond to mails purportedly coming from the ‘person’ they were supposed to have killed, it was crude.
The issue of the ‘Hemraj’ emails first appeared in the Indian Express (1 May 2011). This was when the magistrate’s decision to send the case to trial was being challenged by the Talwars. The report stated that, according to the agency, the mails were a prank. The CBI spokesperson, Dharini Mishra, went on record to say: ‘Our investigation officer has told us that no such mail has been sent by the CBI.’ This officer, presumably, would be Kaul. Ironically, the spokesperson was also asked whether the CBI would investigate who was posing as Kaul. To which she replied that the agency didn’t take such things up ‘suo motu’. This is where the matter rested.
The Express report had a CBI denial built into it because of an error. The email address it cited was ‘[email protected]. The mails in question were sent from ‘[email protected]’. The extra .com left room for a tenuous denial.
But what is tenuous breaks soon enough. In documents it submitted to the Supreme Court in April 2012, the CBI included a printout of a Dece
mber 2009 email sent to Rajesh Talwar regarding the Talwars’ consent for narco tests. Clearly printed, at the top of the page, was the source: ‘hemraj singh
Rajesh Talwar’s reply was addressed to ‘Mr Kaul’.
This isn’t the only place where ‘[email protected]’ makes an appearance. Court documents showed the address was created specifically for the Talwars and those perceived to be on their side. Ajay Chaddha, a family friend, also received at least one email from Hemraj/Kaul.
No email communication with the Talwars that the CBI placed on record comes from anyone except this ‘Hemraj Singh’. In the case of the Talwars’ consent for narco analysis, for instance, the Hemraj/Kaul mail is used to make the CBI case in the Supreme Court. The Talwars had said they willingly agreed to the tests while pleading that the case be reviewed. The CBI countered by saying that the accused agreed only ‘conditionally’. It referred to the email by Rajesh Talwar addressed to Hemraj/Kaul in which he said he was giving his consent to the tests in the ‘interest of justice’ provided there was an assurance that the procedure was not hazardous to his health.
It may not appear that way, but CBI officers do have official email addresses. ‘Hemraj’ did not write to managers at Airtel or Vodafone requesting cellphone details relevant to the Aarushi investigation. According to records, such emails were sent using addresses ending with @cbi.gov.in.
The chief information officer, CBI, Dharini Mishra, exchanged telephone calls, SMSs and emails with me several times in August 2012. At first she denied anybody in the CBI could ever have sent the ‘hemraj’ emails. In the space of approximately an hour, however, she had changed her statement several times, arriving at a final version in an email.
The transcripts of the conversations, SMSs and email are illuminating.
Call at 1.50 p.m. 9 August 2012, on Ms Mishra’s landline, (011) 24361156.
Avirook Sen: What is the standard procedure while sending summons via email?
Dharini Mishra: They are sent from the official IDs that end with @cbi.gov.in. In case there are network problems, officers might sometimes use their personal emails, but these normally bear the name of the officer. In no event will they use an obscure email address.
Sen: The Talwars received summons and other queries from an email ID that read ‘[email protected]’. You denied this in an Express story from May 2011.
Mishra: You are writing about the Aarushi case? These mails were not sent by the CBI. This is not possible.
Sen: Do you stand by that denial?
Mishra: Yes, yes.
Sen: There are documents in court that the CBI has submitted that contain the address . . .
Mishra: What?? Okay give me 10 minutes, I will call you back. If I don’t call back, then you can say I stand by my earlier denial.
Mishra called back at 2.13 p.m.
Mishra: Okay, I have spoken to the officers. They say they have used this email ID for some time due to some very special reason.
Sen: You said you had spoken to the officers when you last issued a denial. Does that mean that denial was incorrect?
Mishra: You are trying to make a story out of nothing . . .
Sen: Can you tell me what ‘special reasons’ there might have been?
Mishra: That we cannot disclose.
Sen: I will quote this conversation in its entirety . . .
Mishra: You cannot do that! You are just making a big story out of nothing. Please listen to me. You did not tell me you were going to quote me. You started by asking a general question, but then you started asking specifics . . . I knew there was something fishy.
Sen: I have told you what story I am working on and what documents I am relying on. These are CBI documents. I did not invent them.
Mishra: You can only quote me on what I say exactly. I am going to write to the Mirror [the publication I wrote for]. I will send you an SMS and then an email. That is all you can quote me on. Do not try to make a big story out of this.
Mishra did message back shortly thereafter: ‘Regarding your query in the Aarushi case—the matter is sub judice therefore CBI will not comment on court proceedings, evidence in court etc.’
Sen: Is this your final statement? Tks.
Mishra: Regarding your query about issuance of summons by e-mail—the same is normally done by official e-mail. In rare occasions, personal or other e-mail ID can be used.
Mishra: I’ve sent two sms es and being followed up by e-mail also. Rgds Dharini Mishra, CIO, CBI.
After our conversation, Mishra called up a news agency and issued a short statement saying that the ID had indeed been created by the CBI for use during investigations. A two-paragraph report, no questions asked, went on the wires sometime the same evening. It baffled everyone who was following the story: I wondered why the CBI suddenly decided to put out such a story. In the jargon of our trade, this was a ‘spoiler’. Information put out so that the sting is taken out of an exposé.
Ashwani Kumar, director of the CBI from August 2008 to November 2010, was part of the email exchanges. He was copied on several emails, including one from Nupur Talwar in April 2010 complaining that his officers were leaking damaging stories. Kumar thought nothing of the bizarrely named ‘colleague’ who popped up in his inbox from time to time.
Kaul’s boss Neelabh Kishore sent and received mails from the ID several times. For instance, when Nupur Talwar wrote asking for permission to rent out the Jalvayu Vihar flat, and when Kishore summoned them to his office in May 2010. Kaul’s subordinates used it too. The Hemraj mail-trail thus ran right across the ranks of the CBI: from inspector to director.
The emails were not limited to the period of investigation either, as Dharini Mishra claimed in her belated clarification. The investigation was over in December 2010, but CBI officers kept writing to the Talwars till May 2012—when the matter had moved to the courts and trial proceedings had begun. Judge Shyam Lal mentions the emails in his judgement as if there was nothing at all amiss. He merely lists what he thinks is an unremarkable fact, saying Kaul had created the email ID to stay in touch with the accused during investigation.
Gautam Patel, who later became a judge at the Mumbai High Court, had this to say about the Hemraj emails in a column for the Mumbai Mirror:
To describe this conduct as disturbing is to put it mildly. It is downright dangerous, certainly dubious and calls into question the CBI’s motives and intentions, especially given that the CBI, like every arm of the government, has official email addresses. The implications of permitting this conduct are serious. A non-official email ID has been created and used to introduce material into the record of a court trying a criminal case. Does this contaminate the entire evidence pool? Does it jeopardize the integrity of the judicial record?
Why should any government agency be allowed to communicate with anyone using a non-official address? Imagine what might happen if, say, the Enforcement Directorate or Income Tax starting sending us emails from unverifiable gmail or hotmail addresses. How would we even know if these emails were authentic, spam or some new form of digital trickery? Have agencies like the revenue services ever communicated with anyone in this manner? Has the CBI itself ever created or used non-official addresses in any investigation previously? If it has not, then why is it doing so now? And what is to be made of its many denials?
These are the kinds of questions that the CBI has been asked repeatedly, but perhaps not enough times. These are the kinds of questions it should answer in court. But for that, the court needs to know. I was a little taken aback by Judge Shyam Lal’s simple, unquestioning acceptance of the email address. The Hemraj emails had earlier been submitted to the Supreme Court too. It had said nothing about them. Judge Shyam Lal also blandly recorded the fact that the address had been created.
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In early March 2010, Kaul’s team received a minor setback.
Kaul finally got the consent and the court order for the narco tests for the
Talwars. Kaul had accused the Talwars of avoiding the narco tests the previous January. Nupur tried to explain that it was Dr Vaya’s opinion that there was no need for one at the time. If the investigation required it, they had no objections.
In February 2010, the Talwars travelled to Gandhinagar to undergo their tests. The scientist there found them cooperative but Dr Vaya told them clearly that this round of testing was different: they had come to the lab as prime suspects. The Talwars each told their stories in a trance as videotapes rolled. The scientists had been given the new hypothesis, and at one point Nupur was asked about her friends. She mentioned a Dr Dogra, and there was alarm.
Was he the same man who spoke with the post-mortem doctor? ‘Tell us more about him,’ the scientists asked Nupur. She told them she was talking about a lady doctor. Someone who she had met at a function after Aarushi’s death. This Dr Dogra had just lost a son in a road accident. They became friends because of their shared grief. The conclusions drawn from the narco were clear, and in line with Dr Vaya’s assessment a year earlier: no information regarding the Talwars’ participation in the crimes was revealed.
Kaul received the report in early March 2010. But it didn’t have what he and Dahiya were looking for. Instead, it said that, for the Talwars, Aarushi was a ‘long awaited, precious child’. And that the parents’ ‘behaviour throughout indicated that they have nothing more to lose compared to what they have lost’. The Talwars’ narco also as good as negated the honour killing motive—their value systems wouldn’t allow it. The results said: ‘Considering the parents’ intellectual capacity, outlook and open-minded attitude, it will be easy for them to accept even the most unacceptable behaviour of their daughter compared to losing her permanently.’
