The decomposed remains of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004 – five months after she was last seen.
Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed are accused of carrying out the killing after their daughter refused to take part in an arranged marriage.
They both deny murdering Shafilea, which is alleged to have been carried out at the family home in Warrington in September 2003.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told the Chester Crown Court that the case had taken a “very long time” to be brought to trial because it was not until August 2010 that a witness to the crime came forward.
“This witness is Alesha Ahmed, Shafilea’s younger sister.”
The court heard that Alesha kept silent for seven years and only told police after she was arrested for taking part in a robbery at her parents’ home in Liverpool Road, Warrington.
Mr Edis said Alesha witnessed the killing of her sister by their parents “acting together”.
“This evidence was the final piece of the puzzle which the police had been trying to solve for many years.”
“Until that moment they had no direct evidence of murder,” he added.
Mr Edis said that, after witnessing the murder, Alesha lived in a family “under great strain” and that as she grew up she suffered from “divided loyalties”.
Sky’s Becky Johnson was at the court. She said: “Andrew Edis QC pointed out to the jury that it (Alesha’s witness statement) would be an extraordinary thing to say about her parents if it were not true.”
The court also heard that Shafilea was a thoroughly Westernised teenager of Pakistani origin, but her parents had standards that she was reluctant to conform to.
The jury was told Shafilea wanted to have boyfriends – a source of great tension in the family.
Shafilea had tried to run away from home in 2002 and 2003, the court heard.
The jury was also told that in 2003 Shafilea’s father abducted her and took her to Pakistan.
While she was in Pakistan, Shafilea feared she had been taken there indefinitely to marry, the court heard.
The jury also heard that while she was in Pakistan she drank bleach, in what Mr Edis described as an “act of self-harm and desperation”.
Mr Edis said: “The defendants, having spent the best part of 12 months trying to really crush her, realised they were never going to be able to succeed and finally killed her because her conduct dishonoured the family, bringing shame on them.”
Police have arrested a woman in Pakistan on suspicion of murdering her husband, chopping his body to pieces and boiling it in a bid to get rid of the evidence.
Zainab Bibi, 42, allegedly told authorities she killed her husband Ahmad Abbas because he tried to sexually assault her 17-year-old daughter from another marriage.
She told police she sedated her husband by mixing sleeping pills in his tea and strangled him with rope before dismembering him.
Police say they discovered her plot after neighbours complained about a bad smell coming from her home.
Bibi’s 22-year-old nephew, Zaheer Ahmed, has also been arrested in connection with dismembering Abbas’s body.
Crime Scene.
Pakistan’s ARY News spoke to Bibi from her cell at the Shah Faisalpolice station, where she said: ‘I killed my husband before he dared to touch my daughter.’
The alarm was raised by Bibi’s landlord, Behzad, who lives on the ground floor of the two-storey Green Town house.
He was so upset by the bad cooking smells coming from upstairs that he went up to complain.
Senior IPS Officers have recommended issue of Passport to Don Muthappa Rai who was involved in many criminal activities (including murder); cases were lodged against him and he was acquitted as every witness turned hostile.
He had fled to Dubai and was repatriated with great difficulty.
The officer states that Muthappa Rai had helped the Police nab a culprit in Dubai when Rai was in Dubai; that Rai is into Philanthropy and is reformed; if he is not issued the Passport, they will approach the Court.
What non-sense is this?
A Police officer, that too an IPS at that, to even think of recommending issue of Passport to a criminal, especially because of the fact he had to be repatriated.
The officer also says that he got help in nabbing a culprit from Rai, when he was in hiding in Dubai.
Had he disclosed this to the Department?
If one were to approach the Court for issue of Passport to Criminals, then why have Police verification report for issue of Passport?
In these matters Police report is to be free of interference, least of all from Khaki.
‘The city police, it seems, are taking no chances with the application of Muthappa Rai, president of Jaya Karnataka, for a “good conduct” report required to obtain a passport. Rai reportedly has a serious medical problem and needs treatment abroad.
While turning down his request for a police verification report, a mandatory document for a passport, the police have made some file notings. The notings, accessed by Bangalore Mirror, read: “Rai has a serious crime record against him and may indulge in more serious offences if issued a passport and allowed to go abroad. It is a different matter that Rai has been acquitted for insufficient evidence, or because of witnesses turning hostile in almost every case.”…
Rai was deported from Dubai after being caught there with a fake passport in 2001. He was in jail and faced a trial in almost every case against him. He was acquitted in the murder cases of builder Subbaraju and rowdy Seena. Both murders took place while Rai was holed up in Dubai.
“Two retired SP-rank officers approached us on behalf of Rai, saying he is now reformed and a responsible citizen. They told us he is into social work and needs to go for medical treatment to the hospital in Singapore where Tamil superstar Rajinikanth was treated for a kidney problem. But we decided to turn down Rai’s application,” a senior police officer told Mirror….
Explaining why Rai needs a passport, a retired police officer who recommended his case to the police said, “Rai had helped the Karnataka police in nabbing an accused in the murder of Karwar MLA Vasanth Asnotikar in 1999-2000.
“The accused was holed up in Dubai, where Rai was in those days. He wanted my help in getting passport clearance from the police so that he can go abroad for treatment. He has developed a cyst in his kidney and needs the kind of treatment which is only available abroad.”
The officer added, “Even the state crime records bureau has given a report stating that there is no case pending against Rai. He has been acquitted in all the cases. He has his business here and is leading a reformed life. He will surely come back after the treatment and has no intention of going back to crime. He is entitled to a passport, and the police can issue a clearance with certain conditions. If they don’t, we will approach the courts.”
Why do you communicate with your daughter through email when she is in the next room?
How was the evidence dressed up?
Why Aarushi’s cuts bore the precision of a Surgeon?
Why was the doctor asked not to report rape?
If your conscience is clean you would not be talking like this, rather you would be cooperating with the authorities as a father would.
Well, a Father would.
New Delhi: “I should not have been born in this country. It is nothing but a banana republic.”
This was how a shattered Rajesh Talwar, father of Aarushi, reacted today shortly after the CBI special court ordered that he and his wife Nupur be tried for the murder of the teenager in May 2008.
Rajesh said there is “no law in India” and that it is “nothing but a banana republic.”
“The system is just nothing. I am sorry to say. I should not have been born in this country. I want the country, media to wake up. It is not fair…” he told a TV channel.
Rajesh said he has tried everything to prove his innocence for the past two-and-a-half years.
A disturbing sexual angle has emerged in the murder of Aarushi Talwar, 14. Crucial facts left out from her post-mortem report suggest that her private parts were “extraordinarily dilated”. But there were no signs of rape. These facts, established by the CBI after they questioned the doctor who performed the post-mortem, give a new twist to the case.”The vaginal orifice of the deceased was unduly large and mouth of cervix was visible,” says the CBI’s closure report.
Her private parts were cleaned. This caused water stains on the bedsheet. There was no semen on the bedsheet. But the pyjamas Aarushi wore did not have water stains on it. This shows that the crime scene was dressed up. The CBI believes Aarushi may have been killed elsewhere and the body placed on her bed.
parallel investigation by Headlines Today reveals that the chairperson of the National Commission on Women (NCW) Girija Vyas allegedly scuttled a probe into the Aarushi’s murder by a two-member NCW committee. Soon after the killing, this committee visited the Talwar house in Jalvayu Vihar, Noida, to investigate. Former NCW member Nirmala Venkatesh alleges that as soon as they stepped into Hemraj’s room, she got five calls from Vyas, asking her to stop the probe. Vyas initially denied there was an inquiry and that a committee was formed. She later admitted that there was, but said the report was not made public because the CBI was about to investigate.
These sensational revelations fly in the face of the CBI’s closure report. Last month, the CBI sought the special court’s permission to close the double murder case because it could not solve it.
Though the CBI has been unable to nail the accused, its investigations have completely ruled out the possibility of outsiders having killed Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj Banjade. Circumstantial evidence points to the complicity of those inside. The crime scene was methodically “dressed up”or cleansed of all evidence which could implicate the Talwars. An expert from the forensic science laboratory, Gandhinagar, who inspected the crime scene, says that the crime had been committed by someone “very close to Aarushi”.
Nobody except the killer or killers, of course, knows what exactly happened in the Talwar residence during the six crucial hours between 12 midnight and 6 a.m. on May 16, 2008, when both Hemraj and Aarushi were brutally murdered within an hour. Aarushi was bludgeoned on her forehead and her throat slit with a small, sharp object. So was Hemraj.
A reconstruction of the crime, however, increasingly points to an inside hand. The assailants had gained easy access to the flat because there were no signs of forced entry. They killed Aarushi and Hemraj, moved their bodies around the flat and even stayed behind for drinks. The parents of Aarushi, Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, seem to have slept through an incredible amount of activity in their small flat. They claimed their bedroom door was shut and the air-conditioner turned on.
The murderer dragged Hemraj’s body to the terrace using a sheet. The body was cursorily covered with a cooler lid and a bedsheet on a clothesline. The murderers then locked the terrace door and re-entered the house. They even seemed to know where the Talwars’ mini-bar was-behind a wooden panel near the dining table. They drank from a bottle of whiskey and left it on the dining table. The bottle had bloodstains of both victims.
At around 3.43 a.m., the Internet router in Aarushi’s room was switched off. That means that somebody entered her room nearly three hours after her murder. Whoever it was, failed to raise the alarm or even spot her body.
At 6.01 a.m., housemaid Bharti arrived. She rang the doorbell four times. Normally, Hemraj, the domestic help, would open the door, but this time Nupur opened it. Rajesh was also awake. This was unusual because the couple were late risers. The iron grill door at the entrance was locked from outside, so Nupur threw the keys from the balcony to Bharti. Three minutes later, when Bharti entered, she found the couple sobbing. “Dekho Hemraj ne kya kar diya (look what Hemraj has done)”. Aarushi was found on the bed in a pool of blood. Bharti rushed out to inform the neighbours. Hemraj’s room had an independent entry and opened into the flat from inside.
Another strange incident happened around this time. Nupur called Hemraj’s cellphone from her landline at 6.01 a.m. The call was immediately disconnected. This means the dead servant’s phone was attended by someone near the crime scene. Inexplicably, both Hemraj’s and Aarushi’s cellphones disappeared. Hemraj’s phone was never found but Aarushi’s Nokia N72 was found on a dirt track by a housemaid near Noida’s Sadarpur area a fortnight later. Its memory was wiped clean. The cellphone was a crucial piece of evidence.
Aarushi would usually be up chatting with her friends until well past midnight. On the night of May 15, her cellphone was inactive after 9.10 p.m. At around midnight, her friend Anmol called on the Talwar landline because he could not get through her cellphone. There was no response. Anmol then sent an SMS to her cellphone at around 12.30. This SMS was not received by Aarushi’s phone.
What were the Talwars doing before the murders? According to the CBI closure report, after reaching home at 9.30 p.m., they dined with Aarushi, then took a few pictures on a new digital camera they bought for Aarushi as a birthday gift and retired by around 11 p.m. Around this time, Nupur came to Aarushi’s room to switch on the Internet router. Aarushi was reading a book.
The parents controlled access to Aarushi’s room by locking it; the keys to her room would usually lie by Nupur’s bedside. Nupur told the police that she was not sure whether she locked Aarushi’s door the last time she went to her room. Rajesh received a call from the US on his landline at this time. This indicated that his ringer was not silent. He surfed the Internet, sent some emails, surveyed stock market sites and some dentistry sites. He sent his last email at 11.57 p.m. before presumably going to sleep.
The following morning, the bunch of keys to the flat and terrace were found on the bed in Hemraj’s room by Nupur. Aarushi’s bedroom keys were found in the living room. It was the only set of house keys, so it is still not clear how the Talwars were locked from the outside. The police arrived an hour later, at 7.15 a.m. They were met by a crowd inside. There were 15 people in the living room and five-six people in the Talwars’ bedroom. Only Aarushi’s room was empty. The crime scene was completely trampled upon.
The “Hemraj killed Aarushi” theory was gospel for a full day. Rajesh repeatedly told the police officers to pursue Hemraj and not to waste time in his flat. He dissuaded them from opening the locked terrace door and even offered the policemen Rs 25,000 to rush to Hemraj’s village in Nepal.
The CBI and police mention they saw the concerted efforts by the Talwars to put the blame on Hemraj as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, doctors visiting the Talwars saw bloodstains on the handle of the locked terrace door. They also saw wiped bloody footmarks and blood stains on the upper staircase. Rajesh was asked for the keys but he went inside his residence after seeing the blood-stained door handle. The police failed to open the door for a full day.
Aarushi’s body was taken for a post-mortem in Noida at about 9 a.m. and her last rites performed late in the evening. The Talwars’ domestic staff showed undue haste in thoroughly cleaning up floors and walls of Aarushi’s room with soap and water. Aarushi’s blood-stained mattress was dumped on the terrace belonging to neighbour Puneet Tandon.
Meanwhile, when the post-mortem report was being written between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on May 16, a telephonic loop was created between Rajesh’s elder brother Dinesh Talwar, family friend Dr Sushil Chaudhury, K.K. Gautam, a retired deputy superintendent of police, and an unidentified number. Dinesh would call Chaudhury who would call Gautam. The latter would dial an unidentified number. This sequence was then reversed. This loop was created six times that evening. The CBI claims that it was done to delete references to “rape” in Aarushi’s post-mortem report.
Some 28 fingerprint samples were lifted from the scene of crime and handed over to the CBI on May 20. This was 10 days before the case was formally handed over to the CBI. Most of the fingerprints, especially those on the whiskey bottle, were smudged.
Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on May 17, this loop was repeated twice. Soon after these calls were made, Gautam arrived at the Talwar house and asked for the terrace door to be opened after examining the site of crime. Before calling the local police to open the door, he called a top Uttar Pradesh police officer and then his journalist friends so that the door is opened in media glare. Gautam told them that there was likely to be an interesting discovery.
When the local police arrived at the Talwar residence, the media was already there. The keys to the terrace were still missing, so the lock was broken to enter the terrace. Hemraj’s body was discovered. However, vital clues were missing-the blood-soaked clothes of the perpetrators, the cloth used to clean the floor and the sheet on which Hemraj’s body was dragged.
Was there a definite ploy to hide Hemraj’s body? And why leave it on the terrace? CBI sleuths believe the body was hidden on the roof by the murderer for disposal later. But the media glare made it virtually impossible to spirit away the body, hence they changed the plan. It may prove as difficult for the CBI to walk away from one of India’s most sensational whodunits.
We can not really pass a moral judgment in this case in regard to the killer inheriting the estate of the victim as the fortune was not really directly bequeathed to him; it was done by his wife.
Life is full of contradictions bordering on the ridiculous.
Proving that crime can pay, a convicted killer is set to inherit a quarter-million dollars from his victim.
Heroin addict Brandon Palladino, 24, will be living in the lap of luxury when he’s sprung from jail, where he’s serving time for killing his mother-in-law — an outcome that has the victim’s family fuming.
“It’s not justice. I don’t understand how he can profit from a crime,” said a tearful Donna Larsen, the sister of the woman Palladino killed in 2008, Dianne Edwards. “He’s going to come out of jail in his 40s with hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.