By IANS,
Ghaziabad : The man was the same and so was the modus operandi. In an eerie recap, former NID student Utsav Sharma Tuesday attacked Rajesh Talwar, father of murdered teen Aarushi, with a cleaver outside a court here as hundreds of people looked on stunned – just what he had done with tainted Haryana cop S.P.S. Rathore in Chandigarh last year.
A profusely bleeding Talwar held his head in pain outside the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in this Uttar Pradesh town. The place was milling with hundreds of people, including television cameras, when the attack took place.
A shiny butcher’s knife lay on the ground as television cameras caught details of the assault and security personnel grabbed Sharma.
The attack took place as Talwar was walking out of court after filing a protest petition against the CBI’s closure report on the case of his 14-year-old daughter, who was found murdered under mysterious circumstances in their Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida on May 16, 2008.
Their domestic help Hemraj was initially suspected for the killing, but his body was found on the flat’s terrace a day later.
Talwar, who was initially arrested but let off when investigators couldn’t find evidence to nail him, was taken to the Apollo Hospital in Delhi where he was being operated upon for extensive head and hand injuries.
The court adjourned the hearing to Feb 8. It has also ordered in camera proceedings of the case, which had the entire nation horrified.
The Talwars’ lawyer Rebecca John said the family was in shock.
Lashing out at the poor security in the court, John said: “It is unfortunate that it happened in the court premises, which is seen as the temple of justice. Something needs to be done when people start taking law into their hands.”
“There was no security in the court and he was attacked in the full view of media and lawyers. I don’t understand why people are allowed to carry weapons in the court and authorities are not able to protect citizens of the country.”
Senior Superintendent of Police-Ghaziabad Raghuvir Lal said Sharma, a gold medallist from Ahmedabad’s elite National Institute of Design (NID), had been booked for attempt to murder and under the National Security Act as the crime had occurred in the courthouse.
“He’s mentally okay. Through interrogation we have concluded (that) he’s not mentally ill,” he added.
Sharma had struck similarly in February last year.
It was another special CBI court, but in Chandigarh and the target was former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore, convicted of molesting teen Ruchika Girhotra in 1990. The other difference was that he had then armed himself with a pen-knife.
He was let off on bail in the Rathore attack case a few months ago and had come to Delhi a few days ago to attend a fair
Sharma, said to be around 30 years old, belongs to Varanasi and was pursuing film production at NID. He is also fond of reading books on psychology.
His father, S.K. Sharma, is a professor in the mechanical engineering department of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), while his mother Indira is a psychology teacher.
Sharma had told police officers, who had interrogated him after the Rathore incident, that he was upset that Ruchika had to suffer and commit suicide because the system did not help her and her family.
His father said from Varanasi that he should not be treated like a criminal.
“My son is suffering from depression since December 2007… Taking this into account, he should not be treated as a criminal for attacking the man (Talwar),” Sharma told IANS on phone.
“I am shocked to know about my son’s behaviour… We will now have to verify whether my son had stopped taking medicines for depression,” Sharma added.