An Indian couple have been
convicted of murdering their daughter Aarushi Talwar and their Nepalese
servant, Hemraj.
The 14-year-old only daughter of dentists Rajesh and Nupur
Talwar was found dead at home in May 2008 with her throat slit and a fatal head
injury.
Suspicion initially fell on Hemraj until his bludgeoned
body was found on the Talwars' roof just one day later.
They denied murder, destroying evidence and misleading
investigators in a sensational case that gripped India.
The couple burst into tears when judge Shyam Lal read out
the verdict in a crowded court room in the city of Ghaziabad, just outside the
capital, Delhi.
After five and
a half years of dramatic twists and turns, allegations of bungling and false
starts a verdict was finally delivered.
There was tight security at the Ghaziabad court.
Journalists were not allowed inside the courtroom, and information trickled out
through lawyers. Some camera operators were perched on the tops of trees and
the courtroom boundary wall to get the best shot.
Passers-by asked journalists about the verdict. And there
was pandemonium as soon as the lawyer announced they had been convicted:
"The Talwars broke into tears," he said.
Family and friends of the Talwars at the court were in
shock, saying they found themselves up against the might of the CBI. They will
challenge the order in a higher court. This story is not over yet.
They issued a statement expressing
their anguish at the verdict. Sentencing is to take place on Tuesday and the
couple could face a life sentence or even the death penalty. Their lawyers say
they will appeal.
"We are deeply disappointed, hurt and anguished for
being convicted for a crime that we have not committed. We refuse to feel
defeated and will continue to fight for justice," the Talwars said in a
written statement given to reporters.
The murders generated huge interest in India with every
twist and turn in the case receiving wall-to-wall coverage.
The police investigation was the subject of intense
scrutiny, with the Talwars and some legal experts saying that local detectives
and then federal investigators from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
mishandled the case.
'Compromising
situation?'
Aarushi's
body was found in her own bedroom, just next door to her parents' room at their
home in the affluent Delhi suburb of Noida.
Prosecutors alleged that the Talwars killed their daughter
in a rage when they found her in a compromising situation with Hemraj.
In the early days of the police investigation, Aarushi was
described as a girl of "loose moral character" who chatted with boys
and went for "sleepovers" at friends' homes.
Such
statements prompted an outcry from women's and child rights groups.
Some experts say the case highlighted a "clash of
cultures" within India, pitting police and conservative sectors of society
against what they saw as the "excesses of the upper middle class".
Nevertheless, the case enthralled India, receiving almost
unprecedented levels of media scrutiny. In 2011 one man, with no connection to
the case, attacked Rajesh Talwar with a meat cleaver as he went to court,
leaving his face scarred.
But police in Noida - which lies in Uttar Pradesh state -
who initially investigated the case were also severely criticised for their
"shoddy" investigation.
Within hours of the crime, dozens of people, including
television camera crews and reporters, had been in and out of the house
compromising the scene of the crime.
Suspicion fell on several other suspects before
investigators finally closed in on the parents and their trial began in June
last year.
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