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Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar inside a car on their arrival at the district court in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Ghaziabad: Dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were yesterday sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment by a Special CBI court for killing their daughter Aarushi and domestic help in a keenly watched murder case that will now play on in the higher judiciary.
A day after holding them guilty, Special CBI Judge Shyam Lal said he was convinced that the gory murders of May 2008 at the Talwars’ plush residence in Noida adjoining Delhi were committed “by the accused only”. “This court reaches the irresistible and impeccable conclusion that only the accused persons are responsible for committing this ghastly crime,” he said in his 210-page judgement.
“The manner in which the murders were committed is not the handiwork of single accused and rather the murders were committed and evidence destroyed by both the accused in furtherance of their common intention which is apparent from the facts and circumstances,” he said.
The judge said he did not give the couple death penalty as sought by the prosecution “in view the entire facts and circumstances ... (as) the accused are not (a) menace to the orderly society”. “Therefore, it appears just and proper to sentence the accused to rigorous imprisonment for life under section 302 with section 34 of the IPC. The rarest of the rare case comes when a convict would be a menace and threat to the harmonious and peaceful existence of the society.”
The distraught couple, who were until recently among the most sought-after dentists in Delhi and Noida, were in the court when the verdict was given. They were quickly taken back to the Dasna Jail in Ghaziabad district.
Talwars’ lawyer Tanvir Ahmed Mir described the couple as “brave” and said they would “fight for the honour of their daughter till the last drop of their blood”. They would approach the higher court. The Talwars were convicted on Monday of killing their 14-year-old daughter and 45-year-old domestic help Hemraj on the night of May 15-16, 2008.
The court said that from the evidence produced by the CBI, it was proved that the couple had the knowledge of the double murder. But to screen themselves from law, Rajesh Talwar gave false information to police that Hemraj had murdered Aarushi.
“An outsider killer after committing the crime will not waste his time in dressing-up the bed-sheet, arranging toys and pillow in proper order (on) the bedsheet, covering the dead body of Aarushi with a flannel blanket and cleaning private parts of Aarushi as his top priority will be to escape immediately after commission of the murder... thus dressing-up of the bedsheet and placing toys and pillow is possible to be done by the accused persons (Talwars) only,” the judge said.
The judge also sentenced the Talwars to five years in jail for destruction of evidence and Rajesh to an additional year in prison for giving false information to investigators. The Talwars were fined Rs10,000 each for murder and Rs5,000 each for destruction of evidence. Rajesh Talwar was fined Rs2,000 for misleading police.
IANS
