By IANS,
New Delhi/Ghaziabad : Almost four months after the sensational double murder of Noida teenager Aarushi Talwar and her domestic help Hemraj, the case floundered to a seeming dead end with a court Friday granting bail to the remaining two suspects – Krishna and Raj Kumar.
After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) admitted on Tuesday that it did not have any conclusive evidence against the three suspects – Krishna, Raj Kumar and Vijay Mandal, who was released on bail earlier, – the special CBI court in Ghaziabad Friday granted bail to Krishna, the medical assistant of Aarushi’s dentist father Rajesh Talwar, and Raj Kumar, the domestic servant of family friends of the Talwars.
The chances of the two getting bail had increased manifold after the premier investigating agency failed to submit a charge sheet before Sep 10 to meet the 90-day deadline since the first arrest in the case – that of Aarushi’s dentist father Rajesh Talwar on May 23, and told the court it has no evidence against them.
Krishna’s bail application was filed before CBI special magistrate Sapna Misra, while Raj Kumar’s bail plea was filed before additional district judge Rama Jain.
CBI counsel Suresh Batra opposed the bail plea of the two on the ground that they were foreign nationals and could flee to their homeland Nepal.
Krishna and Raj Kumar were granted bail on two sureties of Rs.25,000 each. Vijay Mandal, the third accused, got bail last week.
All the three were arrested by the CBI on the basis of their narco-analysis tests, which are not admissible in the court as evidence.
However, the CBI, which conceded its failure to dig out any concrete evidence in the case Sep 9, Thursday said it would abide by the judges’ orders.
“The CBI will abide by whatever the court says,” CBI chief Ashwini Kumar told reporters here.
Aarushi was found killed with her throat slit in her Noida home May 16. The Noida police initially blamed family help Hemraj but backtracked after his body was found a day later on the terrace of the apartment.
Aarushi’s dentist father Rajesh Talwar was arrested a week later. On July 11, CBI joint director Arun Kumar gave a clean chit to Talwar and accused his medical assistant Krishna and two others, Raj Kumar and Vijay Mandal, on the basis of narco analysis tests.
The premier investigating agency, which took over the probe into the case May 31, said Sep 9 that it would not file a charge sheet in the case anytime soon due to the absence of any concrete proof.
“If the bail applications of the accused persons come up in court, the full facts of the case will be presented before the court in a truthful, legal and professional manner by the CBI,” Deputy Inspector General of Police Neeraja Gotru told reporters here Sep 9.
Gotru just fell short of saying that the agency had no material evidence to press charges against Krishna, a 32-year-old Nepali, and Raj Kumar. The third accused in the case, Vijay Mandal, who worked as a driver in the Noida neighbourhood of the Talwars, was granted bail by a CBI court in Ghaziabad last week.
The CBI, after failure to trace the murder weapon and the mobile phones of Aarushi and Hemraj, has also declared a reward of Rs.100,000 for anybody leading it to the crucial pieces of evidence.
The investigating agency has now turned its probe on the Nepal links of the accused to get to the crucial evidence and has sent letters rogatory, or letters of request, to Nepal seeking assistance in locating some witnesses and mobile phones of Hemraj, who too was a Nepali national.